Chicken Parmigiana (Chicken Parm for Short)

Sometimes you have a recipe that tastes good, make some tweaks to make it taste great. Today's recipe is one of those. I'm going to warn you up front, this is not a recipe for the calorie counters. This recipe is designed to be FULL OF FLAVOR, so there are some rich ingredients used. You can easily adjust it to cut some of the calories out. I'm going to give you the full flavor version. Take your pick.

The funny thing about chicken parm is that I thought it was short for chicken parmesan. But, there's no parmesan used, at least not in the recipes I've seen. After a quick google search, I found that we've Americanized the recipe from chicken parmigiana to chicken parmesan and there are some recipes that do use parmesan, but the PARMIGIANA is for the breaded cutlet with marinara. That's what I'm sharing today. My original recipe used the word parmesan without parmesan cheese. Weird.

You need:
Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts (I use 3-4 big guys from Costco)
1 cup Bread crumbs (I like the italian seasoned ones)
2/3 cup French fried onions crushed
1-2 Egg(s)
1 quart Marinara sauce (I use my homemade stuff)
2-4 Tbsp Butter
2-4 Tbsp Olive Oil (I prefer the garlic olive oil)
1-1/2 cups Mozzerella cheese

First, cut the chicken breasts into smaller cutlets. Since I buy the big frozen bags at Costco, they're pretty big pieces of chicken. I cut them in half lengthwise and then in half again top to bottom. You'll want to make sure the cutlets are fairly thin. If you have a medium thickness breast, I'd pound it with a mallet until it's thinner than 1/2". One of the jumbo chicken breasts will make 4 good sized cutlets.

Crack an egg into a bowl and whip with a fork. In a second bowl, put about 1 cup of bread crumbs and 2/3 cup of crushed french fried onions. The french fried onions crumbs is a trick I learned from a friend and it adds so much flavor. Then dip each cutlet into the egg wash, then coat in bread crumbs. Set aside on a plate.

Heat 2 Tbsp of butter and 2 Tbsp of garlic olive oil in a large skillet over med heat. Once the butter is melted, add the breaded cutlets and cook until browned on each side. While they're cooking, pour a little marinara sauce in the bottom of a 9x13 baking dish and shake to coat the bottom. Place the browned cutlets into the pan in a single layer. Depending on the size of your skillet, you'll need to repeat this 2-3 times to cook the cutlets. Be sure to add more butter and oil before each browning.

Cover the browned cutlets with the marinara sauce. I use almost a quart of sauce for 1 pan of chicken parm. Sprinkle shredded mozzarella cheese over the entire pan. The pictures here show a cheese blend because that's what I had in the house. It's the end of the month, I'm out of mozzarella. Use what you have.

Bake in a 350 oven for 20 minutes to warm through and melt the cheese. You can also prepare ahead of time, refrigerate and bake when needed. I'd turn it down to 325 and bake a little longer if it's been refrigerated.

Enjoy! The flavors in this are amazing. It's a favorite in my house with my husband and my kids. I think my husband could eat it every week and be happy.