Chicken Parmesan Panini

For dinner last night, I made baked chicken breasts coated with bread crumbs and grated Parmesan cheese. Since I had leftovers today, I decided to fire up my panini grill. I had fresh mozarella, spinach and mushrooms all on hand, so I figured I’d convert the leftover chicken into a Chicken-Parmesan sandwich.

First, here’s how to make the chicken breasts. This is an easy, family-friendly, relatively healthy dish:

Parmesan and Breadcrumb Crusted Chicken Breasts
Serves 4

Ingredients

4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
1/4 cup milk
8 Tbsp of bread crumbs
8 Tbsp grated Parmesan cheese
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper

Method

Preheat oven to 375˚F. Spray small baking pan with non-stick cooking spray. Pour milk onto a plate or into a dredging pan. Mix bread crumbs, cheese, salt and pepper and pour onto a plate or into a dredging pan (or use a zip lock bag). Dip a chicken in the milk, then dredge in bread crumb mixture and dust off excess. Place breasts in pan and bake for 25 minutes, (flipping halfway through) or until golden brown and opaque all the way through.

To make the Panini:

Ingredients

French baguette
1 tsp olive oil
1/2 cup sliced raw mushrooms
pinch of garlic pepper
1/4 cup Tomato-basil sauce from a jar
A smattering of raw baby spinach leaves
1 chicken breast prepared as above, cut into pieces that fit on your bread
Thick slices of fresh mozarella (I used 3 – 4 oz)

Method

1. Preheat panini press to medium high heat. Heat olive oil is small sautée pan over medium-high heat. Add mushrooms. Mushrooms should never enter a pan quietly. There should be a sizzle. Sautée until liquid is released and mushrooms are starting to brown, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside.

2. To assemble the panini: Slice bread in half and smear tomato sauce on both halves of the bread. Add a layer of spinach to the bottom. Then lay chicken breast on top of the spinach, the mushrooms on top of the chicken and the mozzarella on top of that. Top with other slice of bread and put sandwich in the panini press. Adjust the temperature so as not to burn the bread while you are heating the sandwich enough for the mozarella to melt. Because the sandwich was so thick, it took 15 minutes for the cheese to melt adequately.

Tools I used for this dish are available at Amazon.com: