My Favorite Baked Chicken

Hi,

I'm always trying new recipes. Many recipes I end up just making once. This baked chicken recipe is a "go to" recipe. I've made it bunches of times. It's very straight forward. Depending on the sides you make with the chicken, you can totally change the character of the dinner.

I usually make the bread crumbs with leftover bits of bread that I turn into fresh bread crumbs in my food processor. If you can't make the bread crumbs fresh, you can use prepared breadcrumbs. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

1 cup bread crumbs (fresh or dried)
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese (try to get something better than the stuff in a can)
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt (if you don't have garlic salt, just use regular salt)
1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Mixed the above ingredients together on waxed paper or in a shallow baking dish.

Chicken (Choose what you like, 4 or 5 pieces or white meat, thighs, or if you're ambitious and want to save money, cut up a 3 pound frying chicken.)

Remove excess fat from chicken. You can also remove the skin, I usually do on the thigh and breast pieces.

3 tablespoons olive oil

In a pie pan or other shallow dish drizzle the olive oil over the chicken. Toss the chicken with the oil to coat. Then roll the chicken in the bread crumb coating. Place coated chicken on a parchment or aluminum foil covered rimmed baking sheet. The parchment paper or aluminum foil will make clean-up easier. Bake in preheated oven until thighs when cut are no longer pink. Baking time is about 45 minutes to an hour.

For a super simple dinner, serve the chicken with a simple green salad on the side. Or add some boiled beets or cut up melon. The chop chop salads go along well too. Or you can add lentils, see my lentil recipes. I hope this chicken recipe becomes one of your "go to" favorites, also.

Hugs,
Mameekosan

ps. Don't despair, sometimes cooking disasters happen.