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This chicken parmesan recipe is a lightened up version of a classic recipe you will love.
I know that I’ve been sharing some yummy desserts lately, but my husband and I have been trying to eat a little better these days. We have been better at portion control, watching our calories and (trying to) limit our sweets. It has been a hard change and some days we have done better than others.
September is Family Meals month and I wanted to share one of our family favorite lightened up meals. When I cook dinner for my husband and I these days, I also make my kids the same lightened up meals that I make for us. It has been an adjustment for all of us! 🙂 My kids are getting used to eating more vegetables for sure. But this chicken parmesan recipe has become one of my go to meals.
It’s really easy to make and I think your family will like it too. Here is what I started with.
I went over to Smart & Final to pick up my ingredients. Did you know that you can now buy produce from Smart & Final?
I picked up some zucchini because I knew that was one area that I could lighten up this recipe. I used my spiral cutter gadget and I made noodles out of zucchini as the base of my chicken parmesan. You can get enough zucchini noodles for 2 people out of 1 zucchini.
Once my zucchini noodles were all cut, I could get started on my chicken parmesan. I bought the First Street brand chicken breast tenders in the frozen section.
If you’re like me, dinner is usually a last minute thought. And everything is still frozen or you forgot to buy something at the store. Well here is a trick if your chicken is frozen and you need to get dinner made.
Stick your chicken breasts in a bowl and fill the bowl with cold water. The chicken will thaw as it sits in the cold water. These chicken breast tenders thawed really fast.
For the chicken I needed 2 shallow baking dishes. In one I put 1 egg and 1 TBL of water mixed together. In the other I added 3/4 cup First Street panko Japanese style bread crumbs and sprinkled some salt and pepper into the Panko.
Then you take your thawed chicken tenders and first put them in the egg mixture and cover both sides. Then roll them in the panko and seasoning mixture.
Once the chicken is all coated, place them into a pan that has been coated with oil on medium high heat. When they are brown on one side (about 3 minutes), flip them over so the other side can get brown and crispy.
Smart & Final had a great variety of sizes and flavors of pasta sauce. I used La Romanella Roasted Garlic pasta sauce for this recipe because it had the fewest calories per serving.
Once my chicken was browned on both sides I poured in the entire bottle of pasta sauce to cover the chicken.
I turned the heat down to medium low and let the chicken cook while I cooked the zucchini noodles. To cook the zucchini noodles I put a large pan on medium heat and added 1 TBL of oil (olive or coconut). I put the zucchini into the pan and used tongs to flip them around and coat them with oil and sauté the zucchini until it was cooked.
Cooking it draws out some of the moisture so you can either drain the zucchini, or using the tongs pull the zucchini out of the pan and let the water drain off before you place it on the plate.
The chicken should cooked by now. Place 2 chicken tenders on each serving of and cover with 1 TBL La Romanella shredded parmesan cheese.
I picked up a can of First Street cut green beens and some corn to go along with our family meal.
Now if you’re kids are picky about vegetables and don’t want zucchini noodles, you can always buy a package of First Street whole wheat pasta.
Chicken Parmesan Recipe
A lightened up version of a family favorite
Ingredients
- 10 - 12 First Street frozen chicken tenders
- 1 egg
- 1 TBL water
- 3/4 cup First Street Panko
- 3 zuchinni
- 1 jar La Romanella Pasta Sauce
- 6 TBL La Romanella Parmesan cheese
- 2 TBL oil
- Optional:
- First Street whole wheat pasta
- First Street cut green beans
Instructions
- Cut zucchini into spiral noodles.
- Mix egg and water in a shallow dish.
- Add panko crumbs and salt and pepper together into a shallow dish.
- Cover chicken breast tenders in egg wash and then roll in panko.
- In a pan on medium high heat add 1 TBL oil and add chicken to brown.
- After about 3 minutes, turn over to brown on other side for about 3 minutes.
- Add jar of pasta sauce and turn heat to medium low.
- In another pan on medium heat, add 1 TBL oil.
- Add zucchini noodles and toss with tongs cooking the zucchini until starts to soften.
- Once zucchini is cooked, drain water that has come off zucchini and put onto plates.
- Add 2 chicken tenders to zucchini noodles and top with 1 TBL parmesan cheese.
- You can substitute zucchini noodles for whole wheat pasta, just cook according to package instructions.
- Serve with a side of green beans.
I think this is a meal your entire family will enjoy! I loved that I could find everything I needed at Smart & Final. And now you can have all the private label goodness delivered to your door with Smart & Final instacart! Right now you can get $5 off your order and free delivery using code: SMART5.
You can find more family meals on their Facebook page or follow them on twitter.
So how are you celebrating family meals month?
Happy Cooking!
Liz
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