Today I am sharing one of my favorite recipes to make for guests and to bring to friends when I participate in meal trains – Simple Chicken Parmesan! This recipe is family-friendly and, from my experience making it over the years, a major crowd-pleaser.

It does take a bit of time (1 hour 20 minutes I’d guess), but most of that time is it just cooking in the oven. It’s pretty foolproof and reheats really well. Hope you enjoy it!
I’ve included the simple chicken parmesan recipe below, but keep reading for additional tips I’ve come up with after making this dish again and again.

A few things to note:
- I recommend mixing Italian bread crumbs with panko bread crumbs. It creates a crispier crust!
- Get the good mozzarella if you can (something like what is pictured below) and slice it into rounds. I feel this works better than shredded mozzarella and makes the presentation really nice.

- I like to serve the chicken with a bit of angel hair pasta and a vegetable. We usually just use the pasta sauce from the bottom of the baking dish, but if you have marinara lovers at your house, go ahead and get an extra jar of sauce.
- We try to find pasta sauce that doesn’t have sugar as an ingredient. I promise they are out there – you just have to take a couple of seconds to look!

- I suggest using a pan with tall sides if possible to reduce oil splatter. Unfortunately, I did not do so in the photo below and ended up having to clean my stove. Don’t make the same mistake!

Recipe credit for this simple chicken parmesan goes to my dear friend and college roommate, Whitney. She was one of the very few people I knew that actually cooked real meals in college, and I was luckily one of the recipients of some delicious family dinners in our little apartment. She also inspired me to start cooking more once I got into the working world, and this is one of the recipes I’ve made over and over again since then. Luckily, my cooking has improved and our friendship has grown even tighter over the years. Love you, Whit!

Looking for other recipes to try? Give my salsa feta chicken a go!
Definitely one of my favorites on the Rendon menu!