Margherita Chicken
Servings: 4 servings
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons frying oil
- 2 large chicken breasts or 3-4 small
- 1 1/2 teaspoons Italian seasoning
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- salt and pepper to taste
- 2 tablespoons flour
- 2 small balls fresh mozzarella 8oz/230g, low-moisture mozzarella will also work
- 1/3 cup basil pesto see notes for recipes, homemade is best!
- small handful cherry tomatoes
Instructions
- If you're making homemade pesto, start with that. In the recipe notes you will find a recipe for basil parsley almond pesto, and many other kinds.
- Cut mozzarella into slices and tomatoes into smaller pieces.
- Prepare the chicken: if having small chicken breasts, simply pound them slightly in their thickest part (when a piece of meat is more uniformly sized, its thinner part won't be overcooked). If having large chicken breasts, place them on a chopping board and cut them horizontally in half - now you should have two thinner fillets. You will need 4 chicken fillets for this recipe.
- Season the chicken: Pat dry the chicken with paper towels. Season the chicken on both sides with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and Italian seasoning. Dredge in flour on all sides.
- Cook the chicken: heat oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat. Cook chicken on one side until well-browned then turn over. Place mozzarella slices on top of the chicken and cook until the chicken is cooked through and the cheese melted (if the cheese is melting too slowly, you can close the pan with a lid, if using thin slices of low-moisture mozzarella - it's enough for the cheese to melt to just place the cheese at the end of the cooking time on the hot chicken).
- Take the chicken off the pan, spread with pesto, and top with chopped cherry tomatoes. Season tomatoes lightly with salt and pepper.
- Enjoy!
Notes
- For this recipe, I made basil parsley almond pesto but you can also use other pesto recipes from my website, like this traditional basil pesto, basil walnut pesto, parsley pesto, arugula pesto, ramp pesto, or celery leaves pesto.
- Basil Parsley Almond Pesto:
- 3-4 loosely packed cups or 2 well-packed cups leaves of basil and parsley (45g in total)
- 1 clove garlic
- zest grated from 1 lemon
- 1/2 cup (45g) grated parmesan cheese
- 1/4 cup whole almonds (35g)
- 6 tablespoons (90ml) olive oil
- salt and pepper, to taste
- Method: Add all the ingredients except olive oil into a food processor container. Blend until all the ingredients are finely chopped. Start adding olive oil slowly in a thin stream blending at very low speed or using pulse button until you have a sauce (it should not be smooth, but slightly chunky, don't blend olive oil at high speed or it will be bitter). Season to taste with salt and pepper.
- Basil Parsley Almond Pesto:
- Calories = 1 serving (1/4 of the recipe). This is only an estimate!
Nutrition
Calories: 399kcal