The Flavorful Weeknight Meal Ina Garten Loves (After Her Famous Roast Chicken)

Ina Garten loves to make chicken, so it should come as no surprise that this bird is on repeat when it comes to her cooking playlist. However, while her roast chicken dinner requires overnight salting, Barefoot Contessa's parmesan chicken can go from oven to table in just 30 minutes. Flattened chicken breasts are breaded in a combination of breadcrumbs and shredded, nutty, and savory parmesan cheese that creates a salty, golden crust when fried to perfection. Instead of traditional tomato sauce that tops a classic chicken parm, she serves her parmesan chicken with a heap of greens doused with a homemade lemon vinaigrette — a complete meal.

According to a Food Network video on TikTok, Garten serves parmesan chicken to "mystery guests." These are individuals whom she hasn't cooked for enough to know their preferences. But she explains her parm chicken is a really safe dish that everyone loves. Perhaps it's her three-step coating process that makes this dish such a standout. After she pounds the chicken breasts for an even fry, Garten dredges them in flour which has been salted and peppered, then egg, and then breadcrumbs and parm mixture. This helps the crumbs stay in place as the chicken fries, turning crispy and crunchy. Seasoning the flour also helps to create a flavorful crust. If you are in a hurry and want to skip flattening your pieces of meat, you could bread chicken cutlets instead.

And speaking of that beautiful exterior crust, don't try and coat your cutlets with too many breadcrumbs. This will just make a mess in your frying oil. Instead, try and gently knock each piece of coated meat on the side of a bowl to avoid this problem altogether. This simple step will cause excess flour or breadcrumbs to fall right off. 

Parmesan chicken is comfort food at its finest, and while it lacks the signature blanket of melted cheese and tomato sauce of chicken parm, it would be easy to add these elements to Ina Garten's dish if you wanted to. Chicken parm was born in the good ol' U.S.A. in the late 19th or early 20th Century when Italian immigrants couldn't find eggplant to make hearty eggplant parmesan. It became mainstream when it started popping up on restaurant menus, alongside Italian pasta and pizza. Even The New York Times featured the recipe in the paper in 1962, an official acknowledgment that chicken parm was here to stay.

If you are a fan of Garten's weeknight chicken parmesan supper but want to change it up, you could transform it into a chicken parm sandwich, salad and all. Use a sturdy ciabatta bread or sandwich roll as your base and toast it. For a smaller bite, consider using chicken tenders, breaded with breadcrumbs and parmesan cheese, and make sliders. Tomato sauce is optional.