Italian dishes are tasty and nutritious, and they can be healthy when the recipe used is tailored to meet the needs of a low-fat diet. The fat content in chicken parmigiana should be kept to a minimum if you want to adhere to a healthy diet; however, it is possible to reduce the fat while maintaining the taste.
Cooking the Chicken
Begin with lean chicken breast meat; examine it for fat and trim it all off using a small serrated knife. Once all traces of fat have been removed from your chicken pieces, rinse chicken under cool water and blot dry. Dip the chicken in liquid egg, or egg white (egg yolks are high in saturated fat) and coat with nonfat breadcrumbs. Place in a pan that has been lightly coated with olive oil. Turn chicken breasts over so both sides of the chicken have a light film of oil on them and bake chicken in a 350-degree oven for 25 minutes, turning chicken over halfway through the cooking process.
Preparing the Sauce
You can use a ready-made light tomato sauce, but if you decide to make your tomato sauce from scratch, begin by putting a tablespoon or two of olive oil into a saucepan. Heat over a low flame for a few seconds, then add two to three cloves of chopped garlic to the pan and sauté. Add a large can of crushed tomatoes, along with a teaspoon of oregano or two basil leaves, if desired. Cover pan and cook sauce over a low to medium flame for 15 to 20 minutes.
Combining the Chicken, Sauce and Cheese
Think about the type of cheese you want to put in your dish. If you use whole-milk mozzarella cheese, include no more than 1 ounce of cheese per chicken breast to keep fat content low. One ounce of whole-milk mozzarella cheese contains 6 grams of fat. Consider using part-skim mozzarella, which contains 4 grams of fat per ounce. Nonfat mozzarella cheese has no fat, obviously, but you may notice a lack in flavor.
Once the chicken and the sauce are ready, place the chicken pieces in the pan and cover each piece with tomato sauce. Put the mozzarella cheese on top of the sauce and sprinkle one tablespoon of grated Parmesan cheese (1 gram of fat) on top of the mozzarella cheese. Bake in the oven for another 10 minutes, or until the cheese has melted. To eliminate more fat, use only one cheese.
Tags: mozzarella cheese, tomato sauce, chicken breast, chicken pieces, contains grams, whole-milk mozzarella