Chicken Parmesan Casserole HOLY CRAP!
Chicken Parmesan is one of the most delicious, most classic Italian dishes out there.
It’s probably safe to say that we order Chicken Parmesan in an Italian restaurant at least half the time.
It is a go-to dish. At our favorite Italian places, we always know it will be good. We have both gone through the painstaking process of making homemade chicken parmesan.
breading the chicken, frying the chicken, arranging it all in a dish, waiting for it to bake. It’s delicious, but it’s one of those things that takes so long to make that it’s rather anticlimactic once it’s time to actually eat it.
INGREDIENTS:
2 Tbsp of olive oil
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
hot red pepper flakes, to taste
3-4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-size pieces
2 cups of your favorite marinara sauce
¼ cup chopped basil
8 oz shredded mozzarella cheese
4 oz shredded parmesan cheese
1 (5 oz) package of garlic croutons
DIRECTIONS:
Preheat oven to 350°.
You start by pouring olive oil into a baking dish (the size determined by how much chicken you have). Next crush your garlic into dish. Mix garlic in and evenly spread on the bottom.
Sprinkle with hot pepper flakes.
Now place your cut up chicken in dish. The original recipe had it as whole chicken breasts but chicken breasts are so big nowadays that I think one is too big a serving so at least halving them will make the recipe go farther.
Of course, you can always leave them whole if you’re feeding hungry hippos or you could even cut chicken up into smaller pieces. (I think next time – time permitting – I’ll cut into 1 in. pieces)
note:
there has been a few problems of the chicken not being completely cooked because each oven is different so I would definitely cut chicken into bite size pieces and not just halved or whole to eliminate this problem.
Pour marinara sauce evenly over chicken and top with basil.
Layer with half the mozzarella and parmesan cheese. (I also added a sprinkling of dry italian seasoning to both cheese layers).
Top with croutons (I crushed them in the bag with my hands a little first) and the remaining cheese. (Next time, I will crush even more).
Bake uncovered for 30-40 minutes. You want to make sure chicken is done, so if the top starts to brown a little too much, cover with foil. And Enjoy!!