Chicken Parmesan

INGREDIENTS:

Chicken Breasts

Roasted Tomato Sauce*(recipe below)

1 cup grated mozzarella

1/4 cup grated parmesan

Fresh basil (2-3 leaves per chicken breast)

3/4 c flour

1 egg

2 tbsp water or milk

1 cup panko

(sometimes I like to butterfly my chicken breasts to shorten the cooking time. I even butterfly, cutting all the way through the breasts as well so that there are more portions and more tomato sauce and cheese topping!)

DIRECTIONS:

Set up your three bowl breading station. First bowl, 1/2 cup flour, second bowl, egg whisked with water or milk, third bowl, panko, 1/4 cup flour. Season all bowls with S&P. Dip chicken breasts into flour, then egg, then panko and place on parchment lined baking sheet. In a frying pan adda thin layer of canola or vegetable oil and fry chicken breasts on each side to crisp up the breading. Return chicken to baking sheet and bake at 350 for 20 mins. Top each chicken breast with grated cheese, basil leaves, 2-3 tbsp roasted tomato sauce then bake for an additional 10 mins.

Serve with your favourite cooked pasta tossed with remaining roasted tomato sauce!

Roasted Tomato Sauce:

~(This is my favourite way to cook up a heap of garden fresh tomatoes in a hurry. It freezes amazingly and takes very little effort!)

Fill a baking pan with tomatoes chopped in half.
~ (I like to use a Roma style tomato as they are meatier for sauce but any blend of fresh garden tomatoes works.)
Add 1-2 onions, coarsely chopped into chunks. Drizzle with olive oil, S&P and bake at 395.

~ (I use convection for this as the fan circulating helps to condense the tomato juices faster.)

Bake for 1-2 hours or until the tomatoes are starting to brown and the juices are condensed. Let cool slightly and place in a large bowl and blend with your hand blender or cool completely and put through your food processor.

~ (I don’t like to blend the sauce too much as then the seeds are blended up and can add a bitterness to the sauce.)
Add whatever fresh or dried herbs, like Pixie Chick’s Tuscan Sunset spice blend, you like to add to your tomato sauce plus 1 tsp sugar or honey.