Quick Chicken Parmesan with Missy Tippens

Missy, here. Bringing you an AMAZING dish, Chicken Parmesan. I saw Giada De Laurentiis make this on her Food Network show and immediately printed it off. Here's the original recipe.

Let me say that I did not make the tomato sauce homemade--although I do plan to. Since my son had brought his girlfriend home, and I didn't want to spend the evening in the kitchen, I  just used jar sauce, and it turned out really, REALLY good. I'll be making this often.

Chicken Parmesan

Adapted from Giada Le Laurentiis

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary leaves

1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme leaves

1 teaspoon chopped fresh Italian parsley leaves

[NOTE: I used 2 tsp dried Italian Seasoning in place of the 3 fresh herbs above.]

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Eight 3-ounce chicken cutlets (I had 3 regular chicken breasts that were about 24 oz. total)

1 1/2 cups Simple Tomato Sauce (recipe at link above) or purchased marinara sauce (I used 

the whole jar I think)

1/2 cup shredded mozzarella

16 teaspoons grated Parmesan (I just put it on by the handful and didn't measure!)

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces

Preheat oven to 500 degrees (yes, you read that right).

First off, when I read the baking time and method, I knew I couldn't use the full sized chicken breasts or it would be undercooked. So I got my best knife and sliced each one in half horizontally, so they were still full sized but half regular thickness. So now I had 6 cutlets.

Stir together the herbs and olive oil in a bowl.

Heat a heavy, oven-proof skillet over high heat.

Brush the oil/herb mixture on the chicken (both sides). Cook in the hot skillet, about two minutes on each side (just until brown).

Remove skillet from the heat and pour tomato sauce over and around the chicken--in other words, bury 'em.

Top each cutlet with the cheeses, dividing it equally. I was VERY generous with the cheese. LOL

Oops! I forgot the butter. Remembered it after a couple of minutes, so was taking this shot into a 500 degree oven, afraid to melt my iPhone! So, before you put it in the oven, drop pieces of the butter on top.

(CHEESE AND BUTTER. WHAT'S NOT TO LIKE ABOUT THAT??!)

Bake until cheese melts and chicken is cooked through. This only takes like 5 minutes! So it's such a quick meal. And OH MY STARS. It's amazing! Gooey, cheesy goodness.

Well, I didn't get a photo of the finished product. I almost never do. Why do you suppose that is??? :)

I hope you'll try this! Enjoy!

www.missytippens.com