Hi, my name is Nicole and I am addicted to pasta. It’s true, I crave it. I make it when I’m happy, when I’m sad, when I’ve had too much to drink, or just because it’s Tuesday. Up until quite recently I’ve had it for lunch AND dinner at least three times a week. Then you realize that “adulting” is a real thing that you have to do at some point, and you come to understand that pasta isn’t really a meal. It’s more of the base of a meal, and then you add adult things to it. Therefore, Chicken Parmesan.
Chicken scares me. Salmonella terrifies me. Giving other people salmonella makes me want to crawl into a hole. Every time I try to cook chicken in a skillet I end up burning the outside, and leaving the inside raw. I’m working on it. But! – I love baking chicken. Thankfully this recipe is all done in the oven, no frying necessary. Like I always say: No raw chicken, no hot oil burns, no problem.
You will need chicken breasts, eggs, breadcrumbs, shredded cheese, spaghetti (any pasta you like or have on hand will work, though), and pasta sauce. First things first – preheat that oven to 375 F. While the oven is preheating, crack an egg into a bowl and put about a cup of breadcrumbs into a gallon sized Ziploc bag (DIY shake n’ bake anyone?) Coat each chicken breast in the egg and then put them into the bag. Shake shake shake, shake your booty. Well, shake the chicken, but you can totally shake your booty simultaneously. After your done dancing, and when the chicken is coated with breadcrumbs, lay them on a greased baking sheet and bake them for 30 minutes.
Once you put the chicken in the oven, fill a pot with water and get that coming to a boil for the pasta. Time to do some math: If your water is boiling when there are 25 minutes left on your oven timer, and your pasta takes 10 minutes to cook, when do you put your pasta in the boiling water? Answer: NOT as soon as the water starts to boil. Wait until there are 10 minutes left on your oven timer. Why? Because we are classy adults and we time our dinner components to be ready all at once.
Fast forward to the timer going off. We are going to do a few things. Let’s first drain our pasta and put that back into the pot with enough sauce to cover it evenly. Next, we are going to spoon some sauce onto each chicken breast and top them with shredded cheese. Put the chicken back into the oven for 3-5 minutes, or until the cheese is nice and melted.
Serve each piece of chicken over a bed of pasta and you have yourself a real grown up meal! Congratulations! I knew you could do it. I also won’t tell anyone if you eat the entire pound of pasta with your chicken; you deserve it.
