Chicken Breast With Tomato Sauce and Mozzarella

I developed this, and the great thing about this recipe is that you can coat the breasts, brown them in oil and then refrigerate for up to 8 hours before continuing with the remainder of the recipe, which makes this a great recipe to serve to dinner guests, 30 minutes before serving just drizzle with the marinara sauce and bake! I use Kittencal's Marinara Pasta Sauce (Vegetarian) that I make and freeze to use in recipes or Kittencal's Italian Tomato Pasta Sauce and Parmesan Meatballs can also be used, your own favorite marinara or pasta sauce can also be used. If you are using more than 7 chicken breasts you will need a larger baking dish and breadcrumb mixture and marinara sauce will need to be increased. It is best to use fresh not frozen thawed breasts for this, with previous experience cooking frozen thawed breasts sometimes tend to create a soggy crust, if you are using frozen thawed make certain that your chicken breasts are completely thawed with no extra moisture left in them. You will love this dish!

• Ready In: 55 mins
• Yields: 8 chicken breats

Ingredients

• 7  boneless skinless chicken breasts
• 2  large eggs, slightly beaten
• 2  cups  dry breadcrumbs (use dry breadcrumbs only!)
• 1⁄4 cup  grated parmesan cheese
• 1⁄2-1  teaspoon garlic powder
• 1  teaspoon  dried Italian seasoning
• 1 -2  teaspoon seasoning salt
• 1⁄2 teaspoon black pepper (or to taste)
• 2 -3  cups  marinara sauce (use about 1/3 cup sauce for each breast, but can use more)
• 7 -14  slices mozzarella cheese (or to taste)

Directions

1. Grease a 13 x 9-inch baking pan.
2. In a shallow dish mix together the breadcrumbs with the next 5 ingredients.
3. In another small shallow dish whisk the eggs.
4. Heat oil in a skillet over medium-high heat (use enough oil to coat bottom of the skillet).
5. Dip the breasts first in the egg (shaking off any excess egg) and then coat in the breadcrumbs mixture.
6. Place in oil and cook on both sides until browned (about 3-4 minutes on each side, do not cook the breasts completely just until the outside breadcrumb coating is lightly browned).
7. Place the browned breasts single layer in the greased casserole dish.
8. At this point you can cool and refrigerate until ready to bake.
9. Spread about 1/4 to 1/3 cup the marinara sauce over the browned breasts (not too much sauce or it will cause the outside breading to turn soggy and soft, if you do not mind that then use as much sauce as you like!).
10. Set oven to 350 degrees, oven rack set to bottom position.
11. Bake for about 35 for smaller thin breasts and 45 minutes for thicker-sized breasts or until the chicken is done (if you are baking the chicken from refrgerated then cooking time might take a little longer, cooking time will vary depending on the size of the chicken breasts).
12. Remove the chicken and place 1 or 2 slices of mozzeralla cheese on top of each cooked breast then return to oven for anout 4-5 minutes or until cheese is hot and bubbly or place under the broiler to melt cheese.
13. Delicious.