Chicken Parmagiana – The Quick, Easy, and Tasty Way!
So the other day I was trying to think of something quick and easy to make and one person in the house wanted spaghetti and the other wanted chicken patties. In addition – one was a vegetarian. What can you do? Make two meals with the same ingredients, and one vegetarian and one not.
This is what you need:
- 1 box or 1lb spaghetti noodles
- 1 jar spaghetti sauce of your choice
- 2-4 frozen chicken patties (1 per meat-eating person you’re serving)
- 1 cup or so shredded Italian cheeses (blended or mozzerella)
This is a quick and easy meal, and something you can easily be eating in 20-25 minutes. Put your oven on 425 to pre-heat, turn on your hot water and let run. Grab a large 4 quart saucepan and fill with the hot water, put on the stove with a dash of salt and 2 tsp of olive oil. Leave it go until it boils. While you are waiting on that get your chicken patties and put on an ungreased baking sheet and stick in the oven for about 20 minutes. If you have a vegetarian person in the house, they do make fake breaded chicken patties (by Boca?) you can put in the oven with these as well. Get a 2 quart saucepan and add the jar of spaghetti sauce, cover and leave on medium heat. Add a tbsp of minced garlic to the sauce if you like (we do!).
Once the water boils, add the spaghetti (I usually break them in half), stir after 30 seconds, and then about every 2-3 minutes on high boiling (but not over). Once the sauce starts to bubble turn on med-low. Put a colander in the sink and when the noodles start to rise to the top of the water they are usually done (10-12 minutes) – taste one to be sure, don’t over cook. When you put the noodles in the colander rinse with hot water first, then dash about 1/8 cup olive oil on top and fold into the noodles. Sprinkle with salt and fresh ground pepper (or Italian seasonings if you prefer) and fold in again. I find the seasonings or salt and pepper make for a much better tasting end results, and the oil is to keep them from sticking while you get everything plated. Take out the chicken patties when done, when they come out of the oven immediantly turn them over and sprinkle a handful of shredded Italian cheese on each one. The vegetarian person of course either gets noodles and sauce, or the fake veggie chix patty.
At this point I usually turn off the sauce, grab some plates and forks, put noodles on each plate, then go back to the patties (and the cheese is usually melted by now) – and then I cut each patty into 4-5 slices and put one chicken patty on each plate of noodles. Put one ladle (like 1 cup) of sauce over each patty on plated noodles (more if you like), and then a little bit more cheese on top. By the time you serve the plates that cheese should be melted too.
The nice thing about this recipe is if you like garlic bread, you can stick some in the oven when the chicken patties are about half done, and when they come out put some shredded Italian cheese on that as well! But a lot of the time the breaded chicken patty is just enough to make this a nice full meal!
Do you have a variation of this recipe that would make it even better? Comment now!
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