Easy Oven Baked Chicken Parmesan Recipe

Dec 7, 2010 by VegasKev

Easy Oven Baked Chicken Parmesan Recipe

Baked Chicken Parmesan is always a wonderful meal to enjoy with your family.  It’s a traditional Italian recipe that has been modified thousands of times to suit each family’s needs.  Some chicken parmesan recipes will utilize breasts and some will utilize thighs, however, for this recipe we recommend boneless skinless chicken breasts.  They are wonderful to start with and can produce a juicy meat for your chicken parmesan recipe.  With this recipe, we also show you a basic sauce recipe to use with your chicken parmesan recipe.  Here is our easy oven baked chicken parmesan recipe. 

Ingredients For Your Wonderful Chicken Parmesan Recipe And Chicken Parmesan Sauce

For The Chicken:

• 3 Tbsp Dijon mustard
• 1 Tbsp white-wine vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 4 (5-oz) skinless boneless chicken breast halves (or deboned thighs)
• 3/4 cup of breadcrumbs (we make our breadcrumbs from old French bread)
• 1 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese
• 3 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted

For The Sauce:

• 2 medium garlic cloves, peeled and minced
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1 can (28 oz) crushed tomatoes (we use Muir-Glen)
• 1/2 teaspoon dried basil
• 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/4 teaspoon sugar
• Salt and ground black pepper

How To Cook Chicken Parmesan

1. First you’ll need to prepare the sauce.  In a large saucepan, heat the garlic and oil together over a medium-high heat until the garlic begins to sizzle.  Once that happens, immediately stir in the tomatoes, oregano, sugar, basil, a pinch of salt and a pinch of pepper.  Bring the mixture to a simmer.  You’ll want to continue simmering until the sauce has thickened just a bit (this means that the flavors have started to mix properly and should take about 10 minutes or so).  Taste the sauce to ensure that the flavors have properly combined themselves and adjust seasonings if necessary to your liking.  Cover saucepan and keep warm.
2. Preheat Oven to 450°F.  Cut each chicken breast in half so that you have smaller pieces for serving.  With your meat pounder, you’ll need to pound the chicken until the pieces are flattened to an even thickness.  You’ll want them just under ½ inch.  To avoid a mess, you should use saran (or any plastic wrap) wrap to cover the chicken before pounding.
3. Use a whisk to mix the vinegar, mustard, salt and a pinch of pepper in a large mixing bowl (I prefer a metal bowl to avoid staining from the mustard).  Once your mixture is thoroughly whisked, add the chicken pieces and toss them thoroughly.
4. Using a different mixing bowl, mix the bread crumbs with the grated cheese and just a pinch of pepper.  Once this is mixed, add in the melted butter.  You’ll need to transfer this to a shallow plate (I prefer to use one with adequate lifted edges to minimize messes).  Cover the chicken pieces, one at a time, in the newly made crumb mix and be sure to coat them COMPLETELY.  If you are having problems with any particular area of the chicken, simply press the crumbs in by hand, just as you would a fried fish or fried chicken batter.
5. Once battered, place each piece of chicken onto a stick free cooking sheet.  Place in the middle oven rack and bake until golden brown and cooked through.  This should only take about 15 minutes, however, if your oven is old or doesn’t retain its heat properly, it may need an extra 3-5 minutes.
6. Once everything is cooked, simply serve the chicken onto the plates and ladle your sauce to each person’s liking (I like a lot of sauce).

And there you have it!  An Easy Chicken Parmesan Recipe for you and your family.  Now obviously you can change it to your liking.  Sometimes we like to add a 7th step into the mix by taking the chicken parmesan out of the oven and ladelling the sauce on top of all of the chicken, then sprinkling a decent amount of mozzarella atop the meal and place the dish back in the oven for about 5 more minutes.  This is done simply to slightly melt the cheese.  If you like to slightly brown your cheese, do the same, except pull your chicken out about 3 minutes before it’s done and coat it before putting it back in the oven for about 8-10 more minutes.