Chicken Fricassee
Tender chicken with mushrooms, peas and asparagus in a velvety white sauce.
- Preparation
- 20 min
- Cook/bake time
- 1 hr 10 min
- Total
- 1 hr 30 min
- Difficulty
- Medium
- Calories
- 765 kcal
- Servings
- 4
- Prep
- 20 min
- Cooking & baking
- 1 hr 10 min
A classic leftover dish of clever cooking. A boiled soup hen yields tender meat, a strong broth and a fine white sauce. Mushrooms, peas and a dash of lemon make the fricassee fresh and festive. Serve classically with rice or buttered rice and, if you like, a puff pastry shell.
Why this works
A soup hen is an older bird with a lot of connective tissue. Pan-fried briefly, it would be tough, but in a long simmer its collagen turns into gelatin. This ends up in the broth and makes the later sauce creamy even before flour and butter come into play. That is why a soup hen delivers both in one step, whereas a chicken breast fillet would yield a broth that tastes of nothing and binds nothing.
Step-by-step instructions
- 1
Boil the chicken
Place the chicken with soup vegetables, bay leaf, salt and peppercorns in just enough water to cover and let it simmer gently over low heat for 60 minutes. Take it out, let it cool slightly and pull the meat from the skin and bones. Strain the broth, as it is the base of your sauce.
- 2
Sauté the mushrooms
Fry the mushrooms in a little butter until golden brown, salt them only at the end and then set them aside.
- 3
White sauce
Melt the butter, stir in the flour and sweat it lightly without letting it take on color, because the sauce should remain nice and light. Gradually pour in 700 ml of hot broth, stir until smooth and let everything simmer for 5 minutes until creamy.
- 4
Combine everything
Add the cream, mushrooms, peas, asparagus and the pulled chicken meat to the sauce and let everything get hot. From now on, nothing should boil vigorously.
- 5
Season to taste
Remove the pot from the heat. Mix the egg yolk with a little sauce and fold it in, so the fricassee becomes velvety without curdling. Season to taste with lemon, nutmeg, salt and white pepper and serve everything with rice.
Our best tips
- From the soup hen you get meat AND broth, nothing to buy, everything homemade.
- No soup hen on hand? Chicken legs cook faster (approx. 35 minutes) and stay juicy.
- A dash of dry white wine in the sauce makes the fricassee more elegant.
Tasty variations
With asparagus & puff pastry
Serve fricassee in pre-baked puff pastry shells, a festive appetizer or main course.
Vegetarian
Omit the chicken, use a strong vegetable broth and fill with fried oyster mushrooms and chickpeas.
What is left over?
This recipe only uses the yolks. The whites keep for three days in the fridge and freeze well – nobody has to throw them out.
Nutrition facts
| Calories | 765 kcal |
|---|---|
| Protein | 52 g |
| Carbohydrates | 23 g |
| – of which sugar | 9 g |
| Fat | 49 g |
| Fiber | 7 g |
Where the 765 kcal come from
per serving
Calculated from the ingredients – how we do it
We add up reference values for every ingredient and divide by the number of servings. These assumptions are baked in:
- Reference values per 100 g – for the raw ingredient, exactly as listed.
- Tinned goods count at drained weight, bone-in meat at purchase weight: you eat about 70 per cent of a chicken thigh and leave the rest.
- Water evaporates as you cook. The energy stays in the pot, the weight does not – so the figure is per serving, not per 100 g of finished dish.
- Anything listed without a quantity – “salt and pepper” – is not counted.
A guide value, not a lab measurement: no two onions weigh the same, and fat content varies from pack to pack.
Frequently asked questions
Can I use leftover roast chicken?
Perfectly even. Then just start the sauce with store-bought or homemade chicken broth and heat the pulled meat at the end. A real leftover meal.
How does the sauce get nice and white?
Only sweat the roux lightly, do not brown it, and use white instead of black pepper. This keeps the sauce light and fine.
Can fricassee be reheated?
Yes, but gently and only to just below the boiling point, otherwise the sauce bound with egg yolk can curdle. Best in a pot over low heat.
Is it called Hühnerfrikassee or Hähnchenfrikassee?
Both mean the same dish. Hühnerfrikassee is common because classically a soup hen is used and not a young broiler chicken. The recipe still works with chicken legs, they just cook faster.
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