Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Easy and Good

I'm already bored with trying to cook cheap from scratch meals, especially when they come out tasting cheap. So, last night I cooked chicken parmesan from a Ragu recipe that I found in a magazine, and this one is a keeper. It may not be as cheap as making your own sauce, but a whole lot easier and when the sauce is on sale for $1.88, I don't think you'd be saving all that much by making your own. Plus the Ragu tastes just fine right out of the jar.

I also only buy chicken when it's on sale for $1.97 lb and stick it in the freezer.

So, here's what you need:

boneless skinless chicken breasts, recipe calls for 4 but since there is just us 2, I used 2.
1 egg, beaten
3/4 cup Italian seasoned dry bread crumbs- or you can skip the measuring like I did and just pour some on a plate or paper towel or whatever.
1 jar Ragu spaghetti sauce, recipe calls for the sweet tomato basil kind but whatever kind you want and whatever brand you want will work, I'm sure.
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese- or just shred some up until it looks like enough to cover up your chicken breasts, way easier than measuring it as far as I'm concerned.

Preheat your oven to 400.
Dip chicken in egg, then in dry bread crumbs.
Arrange chicken in whatever size baking dish will hold however many breasts you want to cook. I like to spray my glass baking dishes with cooking spray first, less mess to clean up.
Bake 20 minutes, but I went for 30 minutes because 20 minutes just didn't seem long enough to me.
Pour sauce over chicken, top with cheese. I used just enough sauce to cover the chicken and then put the rest to heat up in a saucepan for the whole wheat spaghetti that I was serving along with the chicken. If you are feeding a lot of people, get 2 jars of sauce. Bake an additional 10 minutes, just the right amount of time for your pasta to cook.

The chicken came out perfect with the extra 10 minutes cooking time that I gave it, tender and juicy, not overcooked or underdone.

Easy and halfway healthy, spaghetti sauce companies are touting that there is a serving of vegetables in that sauce, or you could cook up some vegetables like green beans to go along with this. I was too lazy to open a can of green beans so we just had the chicken and spaghetti, which gives you your lean protein, fiber from the whole wheat spaghetti, a little calcium and more protein from the cheese, and it tasted pretty darn good.

No picture because we were really hungry and ate it all before I even thought of taking a picture.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

white sauce and red sauce in a jar are both regulars on our grocery list, as well as frozen chicken breasts, so I'll have to try this one, thanks!

:)