Mother's Day Chicken Parmigiana

I prepared the following recipe today as a special Mother's Day Lunch, and it has proven to be quite popular on Instagram, so I thought I'd share it here as well. Enjoy!

1 18 oz jar of fire-roasted tomato and garlic sauce

1/2 onion finely diced

4 Roma tomatoes

4 cloves garlic

1 on-vine tomato

2 Tbsp each of oregano, salt, freshly-ground black pepper

2 oz Chianti or another medium-body red wine

Bread crumbs

Mayonnaise

Milk

Thinly-sliced (about 3/4") whole chicken breasts-- buy them sliced or make a cut along the long side of the breast so it opens up like a book

Long pasta (linguine, spaghetti, etc.)

Mozzarella

Parmesan

Sweat out the onions in a thin coating of olive oil, letting some fond develop on the bottom of the pan, but not allowing the onions to burn in a large sauté pan. Process the tomatoes, onion, and garlic until smooth, and use water to collect bits of sauce that didn't come of the food processor. Season with salt, pepper, and oregano. Allow spices to bloom over low heat. Stir. Once fragrant, add wine and raise heat to high to allow alcohol to cook off quickly, then lower heat to low. Add in sauce from jar in 2/3 cup increments, incorporating each measure into the homemade sauce before adding the next. Once whole jar has been incorporated, season again, raise heat to medium, then cover. Maintain over medium heat until ready to serve-- about 40 minutes.

Combine milk and mayonnaise. Season with salt, pepper, and oregano. Season bread crumbs. Trim excess fat from chicken breasts, discard. Dredge chicken first in milk/mayonnaise, then in bread crumbs, shaking off excess each time. Bake at 350° for 32 minutes.

Remove chicken from oven. Slice medium-moisture mozzarella. Top chicken with sliced mozzarella and grated parmesan. Place back in oven, now set to broil on high or to highest possible temperature if broiler isn't available. Leave under broiler for 4 minutes.

Cook pasta according to packaged instructions to al dente so as to be ready when chicken is ready. One minute before the pasta should be ready, remove it and place it in the sauce, allowing some of the water the pasta was cooked in to come into the sauce. Uncover the sauce, and turn off the burner. Let residual heat in pan finish cooking pasta in sauce.

Once pasta, sauce and chicken are ready, plate and serve.

If you make this, be sure to leave a comment down below letting me know!