For the working woman...whose husband doesn't cook...Chicken Parmesan!

One of our favorite Italian dishes but it can take an hour plus to make.  Of course I use sauce from scratch and use boneless chicken breasts that I cut and pound thin to save money instead of purchasing chicken cutlets.  To make these freezer meals, I use the basic tomato sauce from my (For the working woman...whose husband doesn't cook) post.  These were made from the same batch of tomato sauce so as you'll see you can make a lot of great meals ahead of time with just one large pot of sauce.  

Chicken Parmesan

Start with 4-5 whole boneless chicken breasts.  Cut them in half where the thick portion of the breast starts to thin out.  Then take the thick portion and cut it cross wise to make two thinner pieces.  Using a meat mallet, place a piece of chicken between two pieces of saran wrap, pound out to 1/4 to 1/3 of an inch thick.  

*If you have stone or granite counter tops be sure to put a pot holder or something to absorb the impact when you pound out the chicken...this dish is delicious but not worth smashing up your counters for*

Set up 4 breading trays or 4 bowls that are about the same size.  

Bowl 1:  1 cup milk 

Bowl 2: 1 cup flour with 1 tsp black pepper, mixed together

Bowl 3: 4 eggs beaten with a fork 

Bowl 4: 2 cups plain bread crumbs, 2 tbsp Italian seasoning mix

 

Now the fun part...take a cookie sheet and line it with paper towels to put the fried chicken on to absorb some of the grease.  

Take a piece of your chicken cutlets and dunk it in the first bowl of milk and then transfer it to the flour and completely coat with flour.  Then transfer the chicken to the egg mixture, hold chicken above bowl to allow as much of the egg mixture to run off.  Lastly coat with bread crumbs.  To cook the chicken (I use my small deep fat fryer) you can take a  frying pan and heat 1/4-1/2 cup of Canola Oil, once the oil is warm, place chicken in oil and fry for (2-3 minutes in fryer) or if using skillet 2-3 minutes on each side.  Remove and place on paper towels.  Continue until all pieces of chicken are breaded and fried.   *Chicken may not be fully cooked, it will cook when baked*

Prepare 4-8X8 foil pans (spray with non stick cooking spray) with basic tomato sauce.  

Add 1 cup of basic tomato sauce to each pan and slide pan around until sauce complete coats the bottom.  

Add three pieces of chicken to each foil pan.  Cover with aluminum foil, label and put in freezer.  

When it's time to serve my chicken Parmesan for dinner, I take it out he night before and put it in the fridge.  Preheat oven 375 degrees and bake for 30 minutes, cover with either mozzarella or provolone cheese and back for an additional 5 minutes.  Serve over with your favorite pasta.  Our favorite combination is Angel Hair pasta tossed with Alfredo sauce, the combination of the tomato sauce with the Alfredo sauce is delicious.  

Dinner is served!