Parmesan Crusted Chicken is a quick and easy recipe to add to your chicken dinner repertoire! Chicken cutlets are breaded in parmesan cheese and bread crumbs, and pan fried until crispy. This tasty chicken is the perfect easy dinner to serve on busy weeknights. Kids love it and so do the adults.
Do you make chicken dinners a couple of times a week? Then you and your family will love this easy Parmesan Crusted Chicken! Chicken breasts are super juicy and tender thanks to the fast cooking method. Mm… It’s also good that the chicken is so crispy on the outside!
If you love cooking, you will find that this pan fried chicken recipe pairs up very well with pasta such as Louisiana Chicken Pasta, or Baked Ziti. I also love serving it over Instant Pot Mashed Potatoes. It’s a perfectly easy chicken recipe for a quick and delicious dinner. So delicious and simple!
What kind of chicken works best?
THIN, FLAT AND EVEN CHICKEN BREASTS. The chicken breast that works best is thin, flat and even. If the chicken you bought is thick as it usually is, make sure to half each chicken breast horizontally. Once you do that, you get 4 thin chicken fillets. Just perfect, isn’t it?
CHICKEN TENDERS. You can also use chicken tenders to make parmesan crusted chicken.
Parmesan crusted chicken and cheese
FINE SHREDDED cheese, oh cheese! I used store bought shredded Parmesan cheese. But I do recommend to use the fine shredded cheese or grated cheese. The finer you grate you Parmesan cheese, the better!
SHRED or GRATE YOUR OWN CHEESE! Especially if you happen to own one of those lemon zesters at home. I always use it to shred my cheese! I get such a nice fine shredded texture from my Parmesan cheese block. By the way, thinner cheese texture will also help it stick and stay on the Parmesan crusted chicken better.
How should I season chicken breasts?
ITALIAN SEASONING and GARLIC POWDER. When I make this Parmesan Crusted Chicken I always prepare a special dredging mixture. This delicious mixture includes salt, pepper garlic powder and dried Italian seasoning.
FRESH HERBS. However, when I have fresh herbs available I use those. I love fresh rosemary or thyme and use them instead or along with the Italian seasoning.
How should I coat chicken breasts?
- First, paper towel dry the chicken and then prepare two bowls. One is for the egg, salt, pepper and seasoning. The other bowl is for the parmesan breading mixture. Next, you should whisk the egg slightly.
- Now it’s time to dredge each chicken breast piece in egg mixture. After that place in parmesan mixture and press. Turn to coat the other side of the chicken with parmesan mixture and press again.
- Repeat with remaining chicken pieces and place each coated parmesan chicken onto a plate or a cutting board.
How to reheat parmesan crusted chicken
Do you ever find yourself struggling to reheat chicken the right way? I do too! That’s why I recommend eating this Parmesan crusted chicken fresh out of the skillet. But if I do have leftovers this is what I would usually do.
USE OVEN. I simply heat up parmesan crusted chicken breasts in the oven at 350 F to get the coating crispy once again.
CAN I MICROWAVE? I wouldn’t suggest microwaving them. Microwaving will put too much moisture into the chicken crust and the coating won’t be so crispy any more.
What to serve Parmesan Crusted Chicken with
Before I made this Parmesan Crusted Chicken recipe, I had no idea what an easy chicken recipe that was! And what a a great option it is for a weeknight dinner! I liked it so much that I made this parmesan crusted chicken recipe in various combinations. It’s so versatile! You can use it as a main dish, or accompanied by pasta. You can also slice this chicken and use it in your salad.
I love having a salad with this Parmesan Crusted Chicken. I can slice it up and serve it along this healthy Spinach Salad, or my warm Brussels Sprout Salad. Just make sure to slice the chicken!
You can also serve these chicken breasts with Creamy Pasta or Mashed Potatoes. And finally enjoy it with cooked vegetables, such as spinach or broccoli.
More easy ways you can prepare chicken breasts
Pan Seared Parmesan Crusted Chicken Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 egg
- salt and pepper
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon Italian Seasoning
- 1 cup Parmesan cheese, (grated or shredded)
- ½ cup bread crumbs
- ¼ cup flour
- 1 lb chicken breasts, (thin, 4 pieces)
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
Instructions
- First, paper towel dry the chicken and then prepare two bowls. One is for the egg, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and Italian seasoning. Next, you should whisk the egg mixture slightly.
- The second bowl is for the parmesan, bread crumbs and flour.
- Now it’s time to dredge each chicken breast piece in egg/seasoning mixture. After that place in parmesan mixture and press. Turn to coat the other side of the chicken with parmesan mixture and press again.
- Repeat with remaining chicken pieces and place each coated parmesan chicken onto a plate or a cutting board.
- MELT butter and ADD olive oil on medium high heat in a skillet (stainless steel, cast iron skillet or non-stick).
- PLACE COATED CHICKEN in skillet and cook for 3-4 minutes one one side. DO NOT MOVE chicken otherwise the cheese will slide off surface before it adheres! Press down lightly with a spatula.
- TURN WITH TONGS when the first side is golden brown and cook the other side for 3 to 4 minutes. Do not cook for more than a total of 6-8 minutes – just set the timer and flip when it beeps.
- CHECK FOR DONENESS to make sure the chicken is fully cooked and not pink. If not, lower the heat and cook for a couple more minutes.
- SERVE immediately.
Nutritional information is provided as a courtesy only. This information comes from online calculators. Although whatsinthepan.com attempts to provide accurate nutritional information, these figures are only estimates.
Chicken was pretty good….but your recipe needs tweeking….1 cup of Parmigiano cheese is way too much. I cut the coating recipe in half and I still had way to much! I don’t believe on wasting things. I spooned the coating mixture onto my wax paper as needed to coat. I then refrigerated the rest for later use.
Hi Vern – you can definitely reduce amount of Parmesan used. I am quite messy with my cheese and use lots of it.
Olya , this is my go to recipe for chicken!
So happy you are enjoying it, Kerry!
I made this for the second time last night .. I am weirded out about chicken but this is so easy and delicious .. i cook it a little longer to make sure its crispy and i am obsessed .. this will be something i serve weekly if not several times a week.
I am glad the chicken making was successful and enjoyable!
What with you don’t have bread crumbs. Can you do wiyhout?
You can simply use cheese. Bread crumbs do create a crusty surface, but if you keep cheese – it should be good.
I always use crushed ( with a rolling pin) Ritz crackers as I always have those on hand. I like them better than store bought bread crumbs.
I like Ritz cracker idea in place of the bread crumbs!
Really Good
Hi, I was reading your review and Im a little confused. I understand going from coarse to fine but when you say egg first (step 1), then flour (step 2), then bread (step 3), then cheese (step4)… does the breading stick to the flour? I always thought you needed the stickiness of the egg to get the breading to stick. When I try to bread AFTER flouring the breading doesn’t stay put on the chicken. I have started flouring first, then egg, then breading etc. I am sorry if I sound stupid. I’m learning to cook for my family and trying to make tasty meals.
Hi Katie – there are only two bowls, one for the egg mixture and the other – for parmesan, bread crumbs and flour. Only two steps. You can also watch the video to see the visual!
This recipe is a good starting point. There’s a few things that need to be changed for it to really shine, though. First, whenever breading something, you should egg, then flour, then breadcrumb, then cheese. It should go from finest to least fine in order to ensure the meat is coated properly. I did one breast as written and it just wasn’t as nicely coated as the rest that I did my usual way. The second is the lackluster spices. I knew what was provided wasn’t enough so I punched it up and even then I feel like I could have gone further. Finally, this last bit might just be my stovetop or me getting slightly thicker breasts but the cook time had to be doubled for my breasts. Fortunately, I never cook without a meat thermometer c:
This was a good jumping off point and I appreciate this recipe for that but it’s not quite as polished as I usually prefer.
Maybe you should be writing your own recipe blog. Then you wouldn’t have to “correct” the original poster and just give everyone the “right” way to make it up front. I’m sure your version would be perfect 🤣
Carly get your own website to DIRECT people the PROPER way to cook!!!