Chicken Parmesan!

A couple weeks ago, I got the chance to make my first ever homemade chicken parmesan and boy was it yummy. This dish combines a breaded cheesy chicken breast with a tomato sauce and pasta. I got my recipe for this dish from the Pioneer Woman and doctored it up with a bit of my own ingredients as well. So, here is a list of the ingredients I used and the step I took to make this crunchy and cheesy deliciousness.

Here is a link to the recipe from the Pioneer Woman that I used: https://www.thepioneerwoman.com/food-cooking/recipes/a9894/chicken-parmigiana/

Ingredients:

1. 4 chicken breasts pounded thin using a meat tenderizer or hammer– use more of less chicken depending on how many people you want to serve
2. 1/2 cup flour
3. 1/2 cup olive oil
4. 2 1/2 tablespoons butter– the recipe only calls for 2 tablespoons but I used 2 1/2 to make it more creamy
5. 1 medium yellow onion diced
6. 4 cloves minced garlic
7. 3 cans crushed tomatoes- 14.5 ounces each
8. 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar or white wine– I used apple cider vinegar here as I did not have wine on hand at home
9. 3 tablespoons sugar– the recipe calls for 2 tablespoons but I used 3 to cut the acid of the tomatoes
10. 1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley – I did not measure this exactly, I kind of just guessed
11. 1 box thin linguine or spaghetti – use more or less pasta depending on how many people you want to serve
12. 1 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese- I used a bit more but you can use less as well
13. Salt and pepper to taste
14. A handful of crushed red pepper flakes

Steps I took To Make This Dish:

1. Pound out the chicken breasts into thin pieces using a meat tenderizer. I do not have a meat tenderizer so I just improvised by putting the chicken breasts into a Ziploc bag and pounding them with a hammer.
2. Combine the flour, salt and pepper on a large plate. Stir the mixture with a fork to combine a bit. Proceed to dredge and coat your pounded chicken breasts in the flour mixture, setting each piece on another plate after coating it.
3. Proceed to boil a pot of salted water with olive oil and cook your pasta according to the directions on the box.
4. Once the chicken has been coated and the pasta water is beginning to boil, take out a large skillet. Set the heat on the skillet to medium high and add your olive oil and butter. Let heat for a minute until the olive oil is hot and the butter is melted.
5. Once the oil butter mixture is hot, proceed to add your chicken to the pan. Cook the chicken for about 2 1/2 minutes per side or until it is golden brown on each side.
6. Once the breaded chicken is cooked, proceed to remove the breasts from the pan and set them aside.

7. After removing the chicken, let the pan heat back up for a few minutes. Once the pan is hot again, immediately add the garlic and onions and stir. Let cook for about 2 minutes until the onions are browning a bit.

8. After 2 minutes are up, proceed to add the apple cider vinegar to the pan and scrape up the browned bits from the bottom of the pan using your spatula. Let reduce and cook for about 2 more minutes.

9. After 2 minutes of cooking with the apple cider vinegar, add the 3 cans of tomatoes, a pinch of salt, crushed red pepper flakes and the sugar. Stir to combine and cook for 30 minutes.

10. About 15 minutes into your 30 minutes, stir the sauce again. After stirring, proceed to taste your sauce and adjust seasoning levels accordingly. When cooking mine, I had to add more sugar and salt as it was a bit too acidic for my liking.

11. After the full 30 minutes is up, taste your sauce one last time and stir again. If it is all good, then add the freshly chopped parsley and stir once more to combine.

12. Once the sauce is cooked, add the cooked chicken breasts back into the pan and cover them with the grated parmesan.

13. Proceed to cover your skillet with a lid and let the parmesan cheese melt onto the chicken.

14. Once the cheese is melted onto your chicken, its time to serve your dish. Plate your pasta followed by your chicken breast and then put your sauce on top. Garnish your plate with more parsley and parmesan cheese. Enjoy!!

Final Thoughts:

Overall, I had an awesome time making this Chicken Parmesan for the first time. The chicken was breaded really well and had an awesome crunch to it. The parmesan cheese added a creamy element to it, the sauce had a great flavor and the pasta was cooked perfectly. I have always been a big fan of chicken parmesan and often order it at Italian restaurants but have never cooked it at home. I always thought that it would be too hard or require too many ingredients to cook at home. But, was I wrong about that. This Pioneer Woman Recipe is super simple, only requires a few ingredients and can be on the table in under an hour for a simple weeknight meal. I definitely plan to make this dish again soon as it was simple and delicious.

The recipe itself was super easy to follow and I made a few changes to it to better fit my tastes and style of cooking. For one, when I first made this dish, I only used 2 cans of tomatoes as I thought that having less people meant you could use less tomatoes. This is definitely not accurate and caused my sauce to be too chunky and dry. Please use the 3 cans of tomatoes that I listed in the recipe and as stated in the Pioneer Woman’s one as well as it will allow for a fuller and nice sauce. Another tweak that I made to this dish was that I used apple cider vinegar as opposed to white wine. I decided to use vinegar as I did not have wine on hand at home and was looking for a quality alternative. The apple cider vinegar worked out really well and did a similar job to the white wine. So, do not panic if you cannot use white wine, it is not the end of the world. Finally, a third tweak that I made was that I added a tablespoon extra of butter to the pan in the beginning to give more flavor and richness to the chicken. I almost always put extra butter in the dishes that I make.

I hope you enjoyed this blog post and my thoughts about cooking this Chicken Parmesan. I hope that if anything, through this post you learned that cooking Chicken Parmesan is easier than you would expect and that it can be a weeknight dinner. I know I really enjoyed cooking this dish and I hope that it is in your future meal planning!