The recommendation for this recipe is to take two chicken breasts and slice them in half, making four smaller chicken breasts. The chicken will be cooking in your pan, so these small pieces of chicken will allow for a quicker cook time. This dish smells SO yummy. As the sauce was coming together I felt like I was at Johnny Carino's, the Italian restaurant I worked at for 10 years. There was something about this dish that smelled like something made at the restaurant. Then it dawned on me: Stuffed Mushrooms. The sauce tastes very similar to the lemon basil cream sauce poured over the Stuffed Mushrooms at Carino's. Yum!!! Such a good sauce.
A few notes:
- The small back of basil found in the produce section at Walmart was perfect for this dish. It was the exact amount I needed.
- We used diced roma tomatoes instead of Pimento. (Pimento is a type of sweet pepper.) We just weren't feeling peppers so we went with the tomato instead. And it was more likely my son would eat it without peppers!
- I recommend using Panko bread crumbs. The flavor of the Panko bread crumbs is just way better than other brands, in my opinion. And they're not expensive so you don't have to spend much to get a better flavor.
- We served our chicken with green salad, but this would be really good served with pasta. There's plenty of sauce to toss with pasta or to pour over pasta.
Chicken in Basil Cream
Big Oven
makes 4 servings
- 1/4 c. milk
- 1/4 c. dry bread crumbs
- 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts, sliced in half
- 3 Tbsp butter
- 1/2 c. chicken broth
- 1 c. heavy cream
- 1 (4 oz) can Pimento, sliced (Or 1 c. diced roma tomatoes)
- 1/4 c. fresh basil, minced
- 1/2 c. grated parmesan
- 1/8 tsp. black pepper
The first thing you want to do is get all the ingredients prepped and ready to go, separating each into different bowls. (I just threw the black pepper on top of the parmesan cheese because they were going in at the same time.)
(You'll need your bowl of milk and bowl of bread crumbs for this first part.)
Begin by heating your saute pan over medium to medium high heat. Add half the butter to the saute pan. Then dip each piece of chicken in the milk, then dip in the bread crumbs. Place the chicken in the saute pan. Cook it for 5 minutes then turn it over.
The chicken should have a nice brown color. Yum!
Add the rest of the butter and cook for another 5 minutes, or until chicken is done. It may take longer, depending on the thickness of the chicken.
Once the chicken is cooked, remove from the pan and keep warm.
Add chicken broth to the pan and bring to a boil over medium heat.
This will help remove the bread crumbs stuck to the bottom of the pan (and gives the sauce a little extra goodness!)
Stir in the heavy cream and Pimentos (or tomatoes). Boil and stir for 1 minute.
Reduce the heat. Add Parmesan, basil, and pepper. Cook and stir until heated through.
Serve the chicken with sauce poured over the top, or as suggested above in the notes.
Enjoy!! This is a goody!
