Saffron Cream Sauce

This is the sauce we make for my daughter's favorite meal - chicken in a saffron cream sauce.  The sauce is creamy, rich and adds amazing flavor to basic chicken, or pork, or... It has a few steps to it but I think you will find that nothing is difficult.  This is a great sauce to dress up a simple cut of meat for a special occasion, festive celebration or for that rare quiet night at home.

What you need:
boneless, skinless chicken breasts or tenders - or pork - (thiner cooks quicker)
1/2 cup + heavy whipping cream
6-8 ounces white wine
1 cup chicken stock
1-2 shallots (to your taste)
1 Tablespoon minced garlic
1/2 + teaspoon saffron threads
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil

Putting it together:

Pull your cream out of the fridge and allow to sit through this entire process.  Season the meat to taste before browning it in a couple Tablespoons of heated olive oil, medium heat.  Use a non-stick skillet because you want the brown bits from this process!  Remove the meat and put in the microwave to reheat quickly just before serving.  Add a bit more olive oil and add very thinly sliced shallots and the garlic.  Saute until shallots are clear.  Pour in the wine and use your wooden scrapper to de-glaze the pan, incorporating all the pan drippings into the sauce.  Allow to simmer until nearly all the wine is cooked off.  Add the saffron threads to your chicken stock.  Add the stock to the reduced wine and veggies.  Simmer for 10 minutes.  Ok - here is a great tip I've learned about adding cream to sauces - stir your sauce with the wooden spoon/scrapper.  This heats it so the cream can more easily adapt to the heat of the sauce and not curdle. Pour the cream into the sauce, running it over the spoon as you do so.  Stir gently and add the meat back into the sauce and serve.


We like to cut up some veggies to add near the end of the sauce cooking.  This evening we used carrots but another fav is asparagus.  Spoon some sauce over top the dish or (as my daughter does) use a bowl and ladel the sauce!