Vegetarian Chicken Parmigiana

On this page I’m sharing a recipe for vegetarian Chicken Parmigiana. Before I became a vegetarian I lived in New York and Chicken Parmigiana was one of my favorite recipes that I learned there. When I moved back to the Netherlands I often made it for friends. But I stopped eating meat in 2015 and hadn’t made it since. But now I found a really great vegetarian chicken breast substitute and decided to make it again. I loved the taste of this Chicken Parmigiana with vegetarian chicken, so I’m sharing the recipe with you on this page.

Chicken Parmigiana

You might think that Chicken Parmigiana is an Italian dish because of the name. But it’s an all American dish. The name is because you use Parmesan cheese. Americans also often call it Chicken Parmesan.
So Chicken Parmigiana and Chicken Parmesan are the exact same dish. It’s a dish made of breaded chicken, covered with tomato sauce, Parmesan cheese and mozzarella that is baked in the oven. Chicken Parmigiana originated in the United States amongst Italian immigrants. It’s now a very popular dish on the menu of Italian-American restaurants. It’s often served with a simple pasta like Spaghetti Aglio e Olio as a main dish. Or they put the Chicken Parmesan on a sandwich as a lunch dish. The dish is also popular in Australia.

Vegetarian chicken

The only thing that’s different from a regular Chicken Parmigiana recipe is that I substituted regular chicken breast for a vegetarian version. But for a long time you only had vegetarian chicken strips, but not the whole filet. But recently The Vegetarian Butcher has released their vegan chicken breast. And you can really use it like you would regular chicken breast. So it’s also perfect for this vegetarian Chicken Parmigiana recipe.

Recipe vegetarian Chicken Parmigiana

Ingredients (serves 4):
2 packages Vegan Chicken filet
1 egg, lightly beaten
100 grams bread crumbs
400 grams tomato sauce
150 grams mozzarella
50 grams Parmesan cheese, grated

Warm olive oil in a large frying pan. Preheat the oven to 180C.
Dip the vegetarian chicken filet in the egg mixture and then in the bread crumbs. Quickly brown the vegetarian chicken on both sides.
Put the breaded vegetarian chicken filets in a baking dish.
Put the tomato sauce in a sauce pan, heat to boiling and then simmer for 10 minutes.
Pour the tomato sauce over the breaded vegetarian chicken. Top with the grated Parmesan cheese.
Cover the baking dish with aluminium foil and bake for 30 minutes.
Cut the mozzarella in strips. Put the mozzarella strips on top of the sauce and bake (uncovered) for 10 more minutes.

You might also like my recipe for vegan cauliflower hot wings.