One Pan Chicken Parmesan

Chicken for dinner is always a crowd pleaser and my chicken parmesan is a speedy twist on an Italian classic with a few sneaky veggies added in for good measure. Chicken parmesan is an absolute American Italian classic and it's serious comfort food but for a mid-week meal I think it's important we lighten it up. So I'm going to start off with some chicken fillets and we're going to get these fried off. Now typically it's all about the cheese and the breadcrumb coating but we're going to lighten things up a little bit by skipping the stage of breadcrumbing our chicken and we're just going to get it fried off in a pan. So straight in with a little bit of oil and for my chicken I'm actually using little chicken breast fillets. So these are the smaller little ones, they're nice kind of bite-sized pieces. It means that you get a little bit more on your plate and you get more opportunity to brown up these little pieces of chicken. Once that temperature comes up on the pan add a little bit of salt and pepper and if you add the pepper in the pan it starts to toast up and then you get a nice base coating of beautiful pepper and salt. So just place this chicken all the way across the base of the pan and we're going to season it on top as well. Chicken's in, give the hands a quick wash. Season with sea salt and black pepper and let that chicken fry. I know I go on about this but this is a perfect example of when you add meat to a pan do not touch it until it's ready to turn and the way you know it's ready to turn is just to go in with the tongs and give it a little push around and see if it's sticking. The minute it starts to come loose means that it's ready to be flipped. So just turn it once it's nice and golden brown. Right, while this is cooking away I'm going to do something slightly controversial. I'm going to make courgetti. Now stick with me, courgetti is worthwhile making and in this particular situation it's going to be adding lots and lots of nutrition to this chicken parmesan which typically wouldn't have it. So top it and tail it and these little spiralizer kind of gadget devices you can get in most kitchen shops or you can get it online. So just pop it down on the centre and then you're going to get twisting. But if you don't have one of these you could easy slice this into batons and just add them to the pan but I do like that idea that you're kind of getting your chicken parmesan with a bit of spaghetti on the side. But good for you spaghetti. Now we've got our courgette ready to go so I'm going to get this straight in the pan and also in alongside this I want to bring some of that American Italian classic flavour so in with about a teaspoon or so of dried oregano. Now it's time to get in there with the tongs and just give that a toss through. So as soon as that courgette starts to soften down a little bit it's time to bring a bit of Italian sauce to the mix. So I have some really good quality tomato passata. This is a fantastic store cupboard ingredient because I use it for so many things. You can poach eggs in it, you can use it for pizza bases or in a dish just like this. It's a really versatile ingredient. Put this straight in there. Give it a quick stir just so that it completely coats the contents of the pan. This is where you want to be. Bubbling rich tomato sauce, all that chicken getting nice and tender in the steam that it's created and extra vibrance and nutrients from the courgette that we've added in here. Now it's time to build this classic chicken parmesan vibe. So to this we're going to add some parmesan and some mozzarella. And even though we didn't breadcrumb up our chicken and fry it off and make it all golden we are going to add some breadcrumbs here just to give a little bit of crisp and a little bit of crunch when it goes under the grill. So let's grate this up. Okay that should do us. I've got some panko breadcrumbs, those Japanese air dried breadcrumbs. Just sprinkle them over the top. To this we've got our mozzarella balls. Just work your way around the pan with them. And of course the saltiness from the parmesan as well. And a last little sprinkle of breadcrumbs just over the top that are going to crunch up under the grill. A little sprinkle of oregano. And that my friends is ready to go into the oven under a really hot grill just until that cheese has a chance to bubble and the breadcrumbs have crisped up. Now this is what I'm talking about. Have a look at that gorgeous golden bubbling cheese and tender tender pieces of chicken and courgette. Right, I'm sorry but we're just going to have to dig in as it is. I'm going to ruin things a little bit but here we go. Little bits of that courgette have just kind of crisped up around the sides. You've got lovely cheesy action here. I feel like I'm going to burn the mouth off you but stick with it. Kind of hot. Oh my goodness. That is a serious chicken parmesan. It's lighter, it's fresher, it's got all those gorgeous bits of courgette in there. It's still crispy and bubbling and golden and most importantly cheesy. This is one you're going to want to make.