This Chicken Parmesan Pasta Skillet is an easier way to make this classic Italian dish – and it comes together in about 30 minutes in one pot!
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Ingredients in chicken parmesan
Chicken parmesan is relatively simple to make, and now it's made even easier by cooking everything in a skillet! No more breading, baking, boiling the pasta and cooking up extra veggies on the side. Everything is done in one pot for your convenience! Here's what you need to make this chicken parmesan pasta skillet:
- chicken cutlets
- eggs
- flour
- breadcrumbs
- garlic
- portobello mushrooms
- orzo pasta
- spaghetti sauce
- mozzarella cheese
- spinach
How to make chicken parmesan
There are two parts to this recipe technically – first you will need to make the chicken parmesan itself (breading the chicken), and then you'll add in your veggies, pasta and sauce. Here's how to prepare your chicken parmesan:
- Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat.
- Meanwhile, coat each chicken breast in egg, then in flour, then in breadcrumbs. Sprinkle with salt & pepper, then place in skillet and fry for about 3-4 minutes per side.
- You want to wait until you have a fried breading before adding anything else to the skillet – this should only take a few minutes as noted above!
Making the chicken parmesan pasta skillet
Now it's time to add the rest of the ingredients! Here are the steps below:
- When the chicken breading becomes a bit more solid, continue to fry chicken in the middle of the pan and add garlic and mushrooms around, sautéing for about 5 min.
- Add pasta, water and spaghetti sauce, then bring to a boil. Lower heat to medium, then cover skillet with well-fitting lid and let simmer for about 12-15 min, checking and stirring often until orzo and chicken is completely cooked through.
- Remove lid and add cheese to the tops of each chicken breast. Stir in spinach and cover with lid again, cooking for another 1-2 minutes. Serve and enjoy!
Ingredient substitutions and add-ins
This recipe is pretty versatile so you can switch up the ingredients as you need to! Here are some recipe notes below.
Pasta – I used orzo pasta in this recipe, but you can use any pasta shape you'd like, whether large or small! I personally like the orzo because it soaks up a lot of sauce and complements the veggies well but you can easily switch it up here.
Tomato sauce – To keep things simple, use your fave brand of spaghetti sauce so you don't have to make a sauce from scratch.
Chicken – You'll need to use chicken cutlets for this recipe. You'll want 4 cutlets, or you can use 2 whole chicken breasts and slice them in half lengthwise down the middle to create your own cutlets.
Veggies – I used portobello mushrooms and spinach but bell peppers would also work really well here! You could also do a fine dice on celery and carrots as that will complement the spaghetti sauce while sneakily adding in some veggies. If you add those two veggies, be sure to saute them with the garlic in the beginning.
Cheese – You will need to use mozzarella cheese to get the authentic chicken parm experience, but you could also add some more cheeses like Swiss and parmesan.
Breadcrumbs – For a crunchier crust on the chicken, use panko breadcrumbs instead of regular breadcrumbs.
Storing and reheating
This chicken parmesan pasta skillet will last in the fridge up to 5 days. To reheat, sprinkle some water overtop and then reheat in the microwave for 2 minutes or so. Sprinkling water overtop will prevent your chicken and pasta from drying out as you reheat it! You can also reheat in a 375 F oven for 15 minutes or so.
Freezing chicken parmesan
You can freeze this dish and reheat right from frozen! To do this, freeze in glass bowls and then microwave for 6-7 minutes, stirring halfway through. Remember to always add water overtop before reheating! You can also reheat in a 375 F oven for 30-40 minutes – make sure to store in aluminum containers so you can go right from freezer to oven.
More Italian style recipes
Here are some more Italian-inspired recipe ideas:
Meal prep tools for this recipe
- Grab some glass meal prep bowls if you plan on packing this dish up for leftovers
- Freeze this recipe in glass microwave-safe bowls up to 3 months
- Or these aluminum foil containers are perfect for re-heating straight from the freezer to oven
- And of course I get all my free range chicken breasts from Butcher Box!
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Chicken Parmesan Pasta Skillet
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 2 Portobello mushrooms sliced
- 1 1/2 cups dried orzo
- 1 cup water
- 1 (700mL) jar tomato/spaghetti sauce
- 1 cup shredded mozzarella
- 1 cup chopped baby spinach
Chicken Parmesan
- 4 chicken cutlets
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup flour
- 1 cup breadcrumbs
- Salt & pepper to taste
Instructions
- Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Meanwhile, coat each chicken breast in egg, then in flour, then in breadcrumbs. Sprinkle with salt & pepper, then place in skillet and fry for about 3-4 minutes per side.
- When breading becomes a bit more solid, continue to fry chicken in the middle of the pan and add garlic and mushrooms around, sautéing for about 5 min.
- Add orzo, water and tomato sauce, then bring to a boil. Lower heat to medium, then cover skillet with well-fitting lid and let simmer for about 12-15 min, checking and stirring often until orzo and chicken is completely cooked through.
- Remove lid and add cheese to the tops of each chicken breast. Stir in spinach and cover with lid again, cooking for another 1-2 minutes.
Nutrition
Allen Pfenninger says
What a fantastic recipe. Thank you.
If you don’t mind, I did make a few amendments, mostly because I’m trying to use a cast iron skillet and am wary of burning things to bottom. Haste when using cast iron makes it cumbersome. I’ve learned. Speed is not your friend. You’ll pay for it later.
After the initial frying of the chicken cutlets, I removed them and sauteed the garlic and mushrooms, added the chicken back on top for a bit once this got going. I removed the chicken again before adding the sauce, water and orzo. Once that all came to a boil, I put the chicken back on top and let it simmer at a very low temperature.
I removed the chicken once more while adding the spinach; I microwaved the chicken on high for one minute while the spinach was heating to make certain that the chicken was fully cooked,, then put the chicken back on top of everything.
I added the cheese (including parmesan – didn’t feel right calling it Chicken Parm without the Parm…) and put the pan in the oven at 190 degrees for 10 minutes to let the cheese melt fully.
This all took a bit longer, but having tried using the cast iron skillet – which is great to cook with – before and in trying to rush things, I paid for it all in cleaning time.
Doing your recipe this way helped it turn out absolutely perfect.
And please, for those reading this – if you don’t have a skillet that is able to go in the oven, DO NOT try my method re: melting cheese. Stick with the original method.
I thank you for a wonderful meal. It’s a time when so many are cooking again… we all need a starting place.
Taylor Stinson says
So happy you enjoyed, Allen 🙂 And thank you for your detailed instructions via the cast iron skillet, I’m sure it will help others!