A Lighter Chicken Parmesan

Perhaps you're staring to notice a theme. Yes, I'm really into parmesan lately! A couple weeks ago Josh tried his hand at Chicken Parmesan and it was AMAZING! I admit it, I doubted him. I'm proud to say he proved me wrong, though, and produced quite a delicious meal.

Last night, it was up to me to create a decent meal. We had planned to grill out, but it stormed all day long (there were even tornadoes in the area!). I wanted to throw together something pretty quickly, but keep it on the lighter side. Josh's Chicken Parm came to mind, but I threw a spin of my own on it. Instead of dousing the chicken in sauce and smothering it in cheese (is your mouth watering yet??), I just breaded and baked the chicken and then served it with brown rice and steamed veggies.

To prepare the chicken, I took boneless skinless breasts and rubbed them in nonfat plain yogurt mixed with just a tiny dollop of honey dijon mustard for just a hint of tanginess (Josh and I usually use full-fat sour cream, so this was a nice alternative). Then, I breaded the chicken with a mix of bread crumbs, parmesan, pepper, onion powder, and garlic powder. I used standard crumbs, but I think we'll try whole wheat crumbs next time! I placed the chicken on a slotted roasting pan so the juices would not collect around the breasts. Then, I baked them at 365degrees for about 25minutes. I like my chicken a little better done than most, but I took them out while they were still quite juicy for Josh's sake.

For the rice, I prepared brown rice as directed, but added about 1/2tsp of Better than Bouillon after the rice was finished. This added some nice flavor, just not a lot of extra calories or sodium.

Finally, I served steamed veggies on the side. Archer Farms makes some nice varieties with no additives. For this particular meal, I chose a mix of green beans, wax beans and Parisian carrots.

This is definitely a meal we'll be trying again soon!