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

Simply Saturday Chicken Parm!

I love chicken parmesan.

Pollo Parmigiana!

Whatever you want to call it, I've had it lots of different ways, and this is my favorite.

When I don't have time to make sauce, I use

Yes...

Gasp...!!!

A jar.  ;)

This is a great marinara type sauce I get at Sam's Club, to die for delish!

For this recipe you need:

Chicken breasts, boneless, skinless

3 eggs, beaten

1/2 cup water

Flour for dredging (not like the river. Yuck)

Mozzarella cheese

Sauce

Fresh bread crumbs if available (Remember I use old bread, crumb it and keep it in the freezer)

So far, easy-peasy, right????

Beat eggs. Add water to thin them a smidge

Put 1/2 cup flour (give or take) on plate or in bowl for dredging

Put bread crumbs in bowl big enough for thrashing chicken around.

Cut chicken breasts into smaller pieces. Pound out if too thick. (This also releases pent-up anger management issues, very therapeutic)

Dip chicken into flour

Then egg/water mixture:  

Then into the bread crumb bowl they go!

(feel free to add Italian seasonings to the bread crumbs if you must. I like mine with salt, pepper and garlic... But you can add basil... oregano... parsley...onion... Whatever your heart's desire!!!)

Now heat your olive oil to hot, not smokin'... Don't burn the house down,

that's all I'm sayin'...

Settle enough chicken into the pan to allow room for turning...

Brown on both sides...

Chicken will look like this...  And right now you're almost done. Really.

Place chicken onto cookie sheet or pan.... top with cheese. Keep warm in 250 degree oven while cooking pasta and warming sauce in microwave...

And here's where I messed up because I forgot to snap a picture of a pretty plate filled with Barilla pasta al dente, Chicken Parmesan, covered with the jarred marinara and dusted with Parmesan cheese...

So here's one from the Internet!

Just so you know... I used more sauce than that ... Really, that's barely worth mentioning.... And I didn't do the broccoli although it looks wonderful.

I totally, absolutely carb-loaded.

Shame on me!  ;)

And here's a gratuitous picture of something cuter than cute...

This was yesterday at my house... How cute are they? All of' 'em???

A representative sampling of how fun my week has been!