Trader Giotto’s CHICKEN PICCATA – Seasoned, breaded boneless chicken breasts with a lemon and caper sauce
“Our Chicken Picatta is made for us using a special family recipe. Boneless, skinless chicken breasts are seasoned and breaded then baked in the oven until crispy. We then add a buttery, lemon and caper sauce to complete the dish. A timeless Italian American classic that tastes like you made it from scratch” (-On the package)
This is actually pretty good. So if you want a tasty dinner that all you have to do is Heat & Eat, Trader Joe’s CHICKEN PICATTA with Lemon Caper Sauce dish could do the trick. Especially say on a hot day when you don’t want to cook? Or make that any day you don’t want to cook.
My upstairs neighbor actually wanted to check out this Heat and Eat dish to see if it was worth it. She invited my wife and myself to dinner for a review and tasting.
So how was it? Well I was at bit surprised at how good this dish actually tasted. In fact, all three of us who tried it all said it was quite tasty, though we all thought there were a few things that could be improved. Like is should have more capers. My neighbor who loves capers almost as much as I do, wanted more capers. Since we had them in the fridge, we tossed in a tablespoon of capers in the sauce, and that did make it better.
We also thought some fresh lemon would improve it so we added a squeeze of lemon juice. Those simple things really improved the whole dish and made it taste almost homemade.
If you don’t have a jar of capers in the fridge (I do) then at least give this a squeeze of a quarter of a lemon, as that will really improve the sauce to make it taste almost homemade. If you add a tablespoon of butter that would not be amiss either!
To cook the dish, we followed Trader Joe’s “recommended method” instructions to bake it in the oven. I really recommend baking this over nuking it. It will be best baked in the oven, as in the oven the chicken will crisp up a bit. PLUS when you add the sauce at the very end, it will reduce a little and get a little browned and bubbly, both of which adds flavor. So baking is best and worth any little extra effort.
The chicken breasts were actually tender and juicy, and of course the sauce helps a lot with this as you bake it with sauce so they were moist. The included lemon caper sauce was tasty, however they don’t give us enough capers IMO. If you add capers, lemon juice and a pat of butter it will really make this dish taste almost like you made it yourself.
RECOMMENDED HEATING INSTRUCTIONS (OVEN): Preheat oven to 375. Set sauce packet aside. Remove packaging and place chicken pieces on a rimmed baking sheet or pan. Place in oven for 20 to 25 minutes or until hot. Remove from oven and pour sauce over chicken. Return to oven for about 3 minutes or until sauce looks bubbly and slightly browned. Optional: add a few tablespoons of capers, a tablespoon of butter and squeeze a quarter of a lemon over your dish. To serve restaurant style you can plate with thin slices of lemon on top.
SERVING: Plate the chicken with sauce. If you add some slices of lemon on top it will look like it came from a restaurant.
PORTION: The box states “Serve 3”. Ha! Maybe it might serve 3 kids? No, this package does not “serve three” adults. They do include a generous amount of sauce but there is not that much chicken. In the package we got, there were 2 large pieces plus 2 small pieces of chicken. So think realistically that it “serves 2“.
I did manage to make this serve three ONLY because I made some sides. I made a little quick easy zucchini, garlic pasta to have enough food to feed three for dinner and some pasta goes perfectly with this. So realistically this will make 2 portions for dinner, or 3 slightly skimpy portions, which you could stretch by adding sides. Serve this with some rice, potatoes or pasta and maybe a salad and/or a veg. Some nice crusty bread for mopping up that lemon caper sauce?
So in short we thought that Trader Joe’s Chicken Piccata with Lemon Caper sauce was good, and improved if you add some more capers to it. Find this in the refrigerated section with other prepared dishes. It’s $8.99 (16 oz).
I would buy this again.
Addendum: Many months later. I wanted to try my hand at making this dish myself so I did it. Here’s a shot of my own home made CHICKEN PICCATTA from scratch. Fantastic and not terribly hard to make. Recipe I used as a guide line follows (I did not use heavy cream as per the recipe, I made a roux with some home made chicken stock) And added a TON of capers!
https://www.saltandlavender.com/chicken-piccata/
Just in case you need a little inspiration to make it one day. You won’t be sorry!
Trader Joe’s Rants & Raves (mostly raves, a few rants) 
Aug 21, 2023 @ 17:07:30
Just cracked open a dinner we got at the West Warwick RI store. It was supposed to be your Greek Style Chicken with orzo, olives, feta and spinach, but imagine our surprise when it was actually the Chicken Piccata! Apparently the cardboard sleeve from the Greek chicken got switched with the piccata one. A great disappointment😥
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Aug 22, 2023 @ 13:28:31
Their mistake. Just tell them what happened and I’m sure you can get a refund.
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Sep 07, 2023 @ 19:34:09
I just opened a package of this chicken piccata that I purchased from my trader Joe’s this week. I can’t stop laughing that on the package, it says this is supposed to be 3 servings. There are 2 pieces of chicken in here, one larger than the other, and it is barely enough for 1 adult. But somehow, this is supposed to feed 3 people? I’m very disappointed since this was supposed to be dinner tonight, and I don’t have nearly enough food. There’s no way this is 3 servings of chicken. Ridiculous.
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Sep 08, 2023 @ 13:00:13
I agree and put that in the review. Taste wise, I though this was good but this certainly does not “serve 3” as they say on the package (unless they mean 3 toddlers!) However the package I tried did have enough chicken to say “serves 2”. And your didn’t. So maybe you got an off package? Since you were not satisfied, I would certainly take it back for either a refund or exchange and try another pkg and see if you were unlucky the first time. Even if you have no receipt, TJ’s will give a refund. Sometimes I bring the box or package.
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Jan 31, 2024 @ 14:27:04
Thought this was pretty good. But with only two chicken cutlets, not sure how this was supposed to serve 3 (which is what the packaging said for mine). Definitely more like 2. Paired with rice and steamed broccoli it was a hit.
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Feb 02, 2024 @ 15:27:28
The are pulling our leg with “serves 3”. As I said: “Three little kids, maybe!” We managed to stretch this dish to feed three (adults) by making a zucchini & pasta dish to go with this dish and salad and a baguette.
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Jun 16, 2024 @ 18:13:17
We have bought this meal many times for our family and always loved it. This time however was quite different. We recently bought the meal early June and the box had an expiration of June 30, 2024 so we figured it was good. I opened the box and the chicken looked different and it was tough to eat after I cooked it. The sauce packet was actually expired ( mid April) and appeared green. There were no capers and the meal was horrible. It is interesting how the sauce packet expiration date was different (much older) than the expiration date on the package. I will be taking the remaining boxes back to the store. This new recipe and change in the sauce is sad because it was one of my family’s favorite meals.
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Jun 17, 2024 @ 13:10:04
Yeah that does sound odd. I guess return them all and tell the captain the details and let’s hope this gets fixed.
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Apr 07, 2025 @ 21:22:45
I wish I had thought to check the date on the sauce packet (and the trash has already gone out.) It was awful – and greenish. As you also noted, there were no capers. The chicken in our package was good, so we ate it plain. But, I definitely would not buy this again.
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Mar 20, 2025 @ 11:39:48
I love chicken piccata, but can’t find this dish at any of our stores in the Kansas area.
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Apr 07, 2025 @ 21:12:56
The chicken cutlets were good, nice crust on them. We love a good white wine, lemon, caper sauce but this sauce was pretty bad. It was way too sour and if there were any capers in it, they must have been processed into tiny specs. We tried, but just couldn’t do the sauce. We ended up eating the chicken plain and throwing the sauce away. The price just wasn’t worth it for bad sauce. We would not buy this again.
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Jun 02, 2025 @ 12:22:50
Just tried this. Agree with the review that it was a bit misleading to say that one serving is 150grams when there is only 300 grams of chicken, plus 150 grams of sauce (thanks kitchen scale!) as many people would not expect the sauce to figure in to the grams per serving. That being said 100 grams of chicken per person would be sufficient, served with sides, as the article notes. We Americans are used to enormous portion sizes so 100 grams seems small. I did find it to be basically tasty (not great, but similar to what you might get at a diner) and good for when you just don’t feel like cooking.
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