00:00Hello, this is Chef John from Foodwishes.com with Easy Chicken Parm for One.
00:08That's right, we've miniaturized our very popular chicken parm casserole,
00:12which uses a very fast and easy no-fry method.
00:15And we get the same amazing results as traditional chicken parm without having to do any of the work.
00:21And to get started, we're going to prep some kind of small casserole or baking dish
00:25by drizzling in a few teaspoons of olive oil,
00:29followed by a nice pinch of red pepper flakes.
00:32And once that's set, we will take a boneless, skinless chicken breast,
00:36and we'll place that in smooth side down,
00:39and we will generously season the top with some salt,
00:41as well as a nice pinch of freshly ground black pepper.
00:45And as you can probably see, this one did not come with the tenderloin attached.
00:49But if your chicken breast did come with that, it's going to work exactly the same,
00:53except it might just take a little longer to cook.
00:56And once we have that side seasoned, we'll go ahead and flip it over,
00:59and do the exact same thing to the other side.
01:02And this was a fairly large breast that was just over 8 ounces,
01:07which means we are going to need a certain amount of salt to season it properly.
01:10But depending on how salty your croutons are,
01:13you may need to adjust that slightly.
01:15But anyway, once that's been salt and peppered,
01:18we will grab some marinara sauce,
01:20and we will spoon a generous portion over the top.
01:23And ideally that's homemade, using one of our recipes, of course.
01:27But if there was ever a recipe,
01:29where you could get away using a prepared jar from the store,
01:32this would be the recipe.
01:34Plus, we're making this for one,
01:36so there's not going to be anyone around to judge us.
01:39And once that has been sauced,
01:41we will top that with half of our cheese,
01:43and we'll be using two kinds.
01:45Some mozzarella, of course.
01:48And we definitely want to try to use the low moisture variety,
01:51and not that soft, wet, sticky, fresh stuff.
01:54And once that's been applied,
01:55we'll also sprinkle over half our freshly grated Parmesan.
01:59And of course we're using the real stuff.
02:02Parmigiano-Reggiano.
02:03And once our sauce has been cheesed,
02:06we will grab the key to the whole operation,
02:08some crispy croutons.
02:11And whether those are homemade or store-bought,
02:13I do like to break about half of them up,
02:15so that we get a nice diverse array of sizes.
02:19Okay, if you're using those small square ones,
02:21you can just put them on as is,
02:23since those are probably too hard to break up.
02:25But since these were kind of flat and relatively large,
02:28I did break up about half of them,
02:30and put the rest on whole.
02:32And as you will hopefully see, feel, and taste,
02:35those croutons are going to simulate the crunchy coating
02:37on a properly cooked chicken parm.
02:40Except maybe even better.
02:42And I'm going to talk more about that later.
02:44But once our crouton is on,
02:46we will go ahead and top this with the rest of our cheese.
02:49Right, mozzarella first,
02:51followed by the Parmesan.
02:52And of course, if you want to use some other Italian cheeses,
02:56like provolone or pecorino, go ahead.
02:59I mean, you are, after all the chef job of making chicken parm just for one.
03:03But no matter what you use,
03:05once that's been scattered over,
03:07this is ready to place into the center of a 400 degree oven
03:11for about 30 to 35 minutes,
03:13or until our chicken's cooked through.
03:15And it hopefully looks like this.
03:18Oh yeah, now that looks enticing.
03:20And it looks done.
03:22But let's not guess.
03:24Let's go ahead and grab a thermometer,
03:26and we'll make sure we've reached the proper internal temp,
03:28which for me is going to be somewhere between 145 and 150.
03:32And I'm going to go ahead and use a nice freeze frame here,
03:34so you can see that was just about perfect.
03:37And that's it.
03:38We'll let this rest for about five minutes before we serve it.
03:41During which time, if we want,
03:43we can garnish the top with some freshly chopped Italian parsley.
03:47And that's it.
03:48I'm going to pick that up and transfer it onto a towel,
03:50so it doesn't slide all over when I go in for the official taste.
03:54And that, my friends,
03:56if everything goes according to plan,
03:58should taste exactly like a classic chicken parmesan.
04:01And above and beyond the flavor,
04:03we should be enjoying all the same textures as well.
04:06Except with classic chicken parm,
04:08even if you manage to fry it and cook it perfectly,
04:11once the sauce and cheese gets involved,
04:13you do lose a lot of that crispy texture.
04:16Whereas with this method,
04:17our croutons mostly stay nice and crunchy.
04:20So besides being way easier and way faster
04:23and not requiring any messy dredging or pan frying,
04:27I think this method might actually give us a better texture,
04:30since we should be enjoying crispy, crunchy goodness
04:33in almost every bite.
04:35And by the way,
04:36in the original chicken parm casserole recipe,
04:39I actually had you brown the chicken breast first in a pan,
04:42which I did not do here to save you a step.
04:45And I was curious how big of a difference that was going to make.
04:48But as it turns out,
04:49I could not tell the difference.
04:50So basically we made that very easy recipe even easier.
04:55And usually there's some sacrifices and compromises involved
04:58when we're using one of these time-saving recipe hacks.
05:01But here that is certainly not the case,
05:04which is why I really do hope you give it a try soon.
05:07So please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts,
05:11a printable written recipe,
05:13and much more info as usual.
05:15And as always,
05:18enjoy.
05:19is
05:20is
05:30is
05:31You
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