When I think about the meals I ate while growing up, there is one common thread – they were all homemade. Whether I was eating at grandma’s, an aunt’s house, or at home, there was always a homemade meal to nourish me. And although I’ve had countless wonderful meals, my mom’s Parmesan Chicken was one of my all time favorites.
I remember my mother spending a good amount of time in the kitchen when preparing Parmesan Chicken – she never skimped on ingredients or cut corners. She would always make homemade pasta sauce for the chicken and pasta – delicious, but time-consuming. Then, while the sauce was cooking, she would dredge the chicken, fry it up, and pop it in the oven to melt the cheese. It took a lot of steps, but the result was always spectacular.
Baked Parmesan Chicken
While I love Parmesan Chicken, I don’t always have the time to prepare it the traditional way. Lucky for me, I found a new way to prepare it while still retaining all of the goodness in the original recipe with my Baked Parmesan Chicken using RAGÚ Pasta/Marinara Sauce!
Like my mom’s sauce, RAGÚ Pasta Sauces are thick and hearty with no artificial colors, flavors, or high-fructose corn syrup. The ingredients are fresh and made from a blend of 100% vine-ripened California-grown tomatoes, onions and fragrant herbs such as basil, oregano, fennel and ground black pepper. There is so much flavor in the new RAGÚ Pasta Sauces that I don’t have to doctor the sauce with additional items and can use it directly from the bottle to coat my Baked Parmesan Chicken dish.
How to make Baked Parmesan Chicken
In a shallow bowl, mix together the bread crumbs and parmesan cheese. In another bowl, add a cup of RAGÚ Pasta Sauce. Dip chicken into the pasta sauce and coat both sides well. The thick and hearty RAGÚ Pasta Sauce should stick to the chicken well and give it a good sauce coating. Next, dip the chicken into the breadcrumbs, coating both sides. Place the coated pieces of chicken on a foil lined baking pan that is generously sprayed with cooking oil.
When all the chicken pieces are coated, sprinkle any leftover breadcrumbs over the top of each chicken piece. To ensure a nice crisp chicken, spray each chicken with cooking oil. Bake at 325°F for 20 minutes or until chicken is cooked.
Add cheese and a spoonful of RAGÚ Pasta Sauce on each chicken and baked for another 2 minutes or until the cheese is melted.
Serve the Baked Chicken Parmesan over pasta and top with more warmed RAGÚ Pasta Sauce*.
*If serving with pasta, you will need two bottles of RAGÚ Pasta Sauce.
Baked Parmesan Chicken
How to make baked parmesan chicken using spaghetti sauce.
Ingredients
- 1 bag chicken tenders (defrosted), pat dry
- 1 bottle thick spaghetti/marinara sauce (choose your favorite flavor) or 2 if serving with pasta
- 1 1/3 cup seasoned breadcrumbs
- 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
- 2 cups Pepper Jack or Mozzarella
- cooking spray
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325°F. Line a baking sheet with foil and generously spray with cooking spray. Set aside.
- Pat chicken tenders with a paper towel to remove excess water.
- Add seasoned breadcrumbs and Parmesan cheese to a shallow bowl and mix together. In a separate bowl, add 1 cup of pasta sauce. Dip chicken tenders into the pasta sauce and coat both sides well. Then dip in the breadcrumb mixture. Place coated tenders onto the foil lined pan. Repeat until all the tenders are coated. Discard any sauce used for dipping the chicken in.
- Generously spray the coated chicken with cooking spray. Place pan in oven and baked for 20 minutes or until chicken is cooked.
- Add a pepper jack cheese and a heaping spoonful of bottle pasta sauce onto each chicken. Bake for another 2 minutes or until cheese is melted and sauce is warm.
Notes
If serving chicken over pasta, buy an additional bottle of pasta sauce.
Recommended Products
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Ragu Old World Style Traditional Pasta Sauce 45 oz. each, 3 pk. A1 -
Pam Original No-Stick Cooking Spray 100% natural Canola Oil (2 pack - 12oz each can) -
Good Cook 3-Piece Mixing Spoons Set -
Superior Glass Mixing Bowls with Lids - 8 Piece Mixing Bowl Set with BPA- Free lids -
USA Pan Bakeware Extra Large Sheet Baking Pan and Bakeable Nonstick Cooling Rack Set, XL, Metal -
Amazon Basics Heavy Duty Aluminum Foil, 12" X 200'
I made this wonderful recipe with some saffron and it was really delicious. I have tried to make it with some other stuff added to it. I have added saffron threads and really liked the taste. Thanks a lot for the amazing recipe.
Erlene, this looks so good! I love Italian food especially when it looks like this.
This looks so good! I’m going to make this very soon!
This looks so good! My kids will love this and plan to make the next time they are both home from college!
OMG I love this. This is by far my favorite meal and your version looks amazing – Must try it 😉
That looks delicious! I’m definitely pinning this for later!
Wow, that looks delicious! I bet it would become one of my favorite meals!
This looks like a delicious Italian meal. I love that you coated the chicken with sauce before putting it in the breadcrumbs. What a genius idea!
I make baked parmesan chicken too. It is so tasty and the whole family loves it.
Is baked so much easier than frying? We love it 🙂
I could eat pasta every day! I love your recipe. So easy.
Thank you, it’s a really easy recipe!
This looks delicious and seems like a really easy recipe to make. I have a soft spot for Parmesan cheese too so I can’t wait to try it out. Thank you so much for sharing.
It’s a super easy recipe and I like that I don’t have to deal with a greasy frying pan.
I love chicken parmesan but I haven’t made it in forever. I really need to try this recipe.
I hope you try!
Awesome – I love the new homestyle sauces by Ragu. I have the four cheese one. I’m going to have to try this recipe!
I like the new sauces too. I’ve been on the hunt for the four cheese one because it would be great in this recipe. LMK if you try it.
This dish looks delicious! Could you swap out the noodles for spaghetti squash or zucchini?
We are trying to cut carbs and extra sugar (which isn’t easy at all).
Thanks Heather. I don’t see why you couldn’t swap it out. I think it would be great and make it even lighter.
Looks great Erlene! Thanks for sharing your recipes with us at Snickerdoodle Sunday! Pinning to share.
Thanks for the fun party and the for the opportunity to share this recipe.
This looks so yummy! Next time my daughter is home I will try making this! As this is one of her favorites! 🙂
I hope she like this version 🙂
I am part Italian and chicken parm is hands down one of my favorite dishes to eat ever! My fiance when we were younger once tried to make this all in the microwave and to this day I have not let him live that down!
Chicken Parm is one of our favorites too. That must have been a sight with your fiance 🙂
1) This looks so good. 2) I love how perfectly twirled your spaghetti is! I can never get mine to look anything but messy, which is why there are no spaghetti recipes on my blog, ha!
Thanks Julie. My spaghetti doesn’t usually look that nice, but it does for photos 🙂
That looks so yummy! Chicken Parmesan is one of my favorite dinners ever but I don’t make it very often because it takes so long to prepare. I am going to have to look for Homestyle Ragu at my grocery store. That would be a huge timesaver if I didn’t have to make the sauce from scratch.
This recipe definitely saves some time and the RAGU sauces are really thick and tasty.
This is one of my favorite meals and I love that your recipe calls for baking it. This makes me want to make more homemade meals. I don’t do that nearly enough!
Baking it makes it so much easier and quicker too.
YUM!! this looks delicious. I like a good chicken parm meal that is baked not fried.
Thanks Rebecca. Baking makes preparing this meal so easy.
This looks so good! Chicken parm is one of my faves!
Thanks, it’s one of our favorites too!
Never to many ways to eat pasta or chicken. Looks like a great dish to feed a crowd. I bet it makes awesome leftover too.
It’s definitely a dish that helps me feed my family of six, which includes two hungry teen boys 🙂
This looks so yummy! Can’t wait to try making this!
LMK how you like it.
I always bake my parmesan recipes but first sear them in a little olive oil. I too take a short cut with the sauce for dishes like this.
I think baking tastes just as good 🙂
This looks so delish and easy! I know what I am having for Sunday dinner this week 🙂 I also added it to Stumbled Upon 🙂
Thanks so much Sheila. I hope you enjoy the dish.
Looks amazing! We just love pasta and what a great idea to dip your chicken in the sauce before breading! Will have to try this soon!
Thanks Joscelyn. Dipping the chicken in the sauce makes this recipe so easy and fast.
Looks good! I just did a post for Ragu as well! So fun.
Thanks Brittany. It’s easy to make a great meal when RAGU does some of the work 🙂
Wow, this looks great! I bet the four cheeses sauce flavor tastes great on this dish!
Yes, the four cheese sauce would be great for this. I used the garlic sauce for this time, but I think any of the sauces would work.
Oh the memories of Momma cooking up a good meal like this! I love meals with few ingredients and lots of flavor!
I know, sometimes I wish I had someone still cooking for me 🙂 Quick meals with few ingredients are my ‘go to’ meals nowadays.
That looks yummy! Fast and easy is what’s for dinner most nights in our house! I’ll be giving this a try for sure.
Thanks Tonya. I’m all about fast and easy when I have four hungry teens hounding me for dinner 🙂