chicken parmesan minis, a lighter take on chicken parm

Since the new year, I’ve made more healthy food choices than I did in the last 3 months combined. Possibly a stretch, but I’m pretty proud of the fact that I’ve been able to say no to a few of my favorite dishes in exchange for lighter fare. While I was grocery shopping last weekend (and starving, might I add) I suddenly felt the need to drive to the nearest Italian restaurant for a taste of comfort food at its finest, chicken parmesan. That wasn’t a realistic thought for many reasons, not excluding the fact that I was wearing a pair of my favorite yoga pants and a t-shirt. Nope, that wouldn’t do.

I pushed through and continued checking things off my list. It wasn’t until I made it to the produce that I saw the ticket to my chicken parmesan, resting between the egg roll wrappers and the Wholly Guacamole, the wonton wrappers. Yes, yes, yes! I knew they could hold up in a hearty Italian dish, the Mini Lasagna Cups are a proven hit. I quickly scratched leftovers off the menu-plan for Thursday and added parmesan chicken. Last night, I switched meals and I finally satisfied my craving for chicken parmesan.

Now, they probably look much fancier than they actually are. You should know, I’m intimidated by recipes with a million ingredients and 27 different steps. My attention span just doesn’t hang on long enough for that. Here’s the quick and easy version. Both Allen and Braylen agree, best dinner I’ve cooked in a long time.

Instructions:

For chicken tenders, I used Rachael Ray’s oven-baked chicken recipe, I just tweaked it slightly by adding parmesan cheese to the bread crumbs. We had extra so I’ll let BK eat them for lunch during the week. If you want to make just enough, you could cut this recipe by 1/3. 

• 1  1/2 pounds chicken tenders
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1/4 cup milk
• 2 cups breadcrumbs, seasoned or unseasoned
• 1/2 c parmesan cheese
• Salt and black pepper

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Season the chicken tenders with salt and pepper, I used chicken breast so I cut them into strips and cut each strip into thirds to make small pieces for the muffin tin.

Use three shallow bowls. In the first bowl, beat eggs and milk. In the second bowl, add salt and black pepper to the flour. In the third bowl, mix the breadcrumbs and parmesan cheese. Coat chicken by dipping in the flour, then into the eggs, then coating with the breadcrumb mixture. Place on a cookie sheet (I lightly greased mine with olive oil). Bake 12-15 minutes.

Go ahead and turn the oven down to about 325 degrees. Once the chicken tenders are cooked, the hardest part is over, here’s what you need for the rest of the dish.

• 12 wonton wrappers
• 1/2 c marinara sauce
• 1/8 c shredded parmesan
• 3 slices of mozzarella cheese (from the block) Edited to add: We use the large blocks of cheese from Sam’s, you calories can add up quickly if you aren’t careful here. Make your slices thin and you can easily cut it into fourths. If you are using the small, rectangular blocks from the grocery store, just cut your slice in half. 
• parsley
• basil

Grease a muffin pan lightly with olive oil. Place one wonton wrapper into each spot in the muffin tin. Add a piece chicken, spoon about 1 tablespoon of marinara over each piece of chicken. Place 1/4 slice of cheese over the top and sprinkle with parmesan, parsley and basil.

Bake until the edges of the wonton wrapper turn dark brown.

Calorie Info: I calculated calories based on the specific ingredients that I used, actual calories may vary depending on the brand and nutritional content of your ingredients. I deducted for the leftover breadcrumbs, flour and eggs and I cut the final calorie count of the chicken by 1/3.  If you coat yours heavily, you’ll need to add extra calories for that part, but we used a light coating and it saved a few calories when the leftover breadcrumbs were deducted. Recipe yields 12 individual chicken parm-mini’s, each mini has about 140 calories.

 Enjoy!