Pan-Fried Chicken Parm

Per Serving (4oz cutlet with sauce and cheese): 6 points+ - 258 calories, 6g fat, 684mg sodium, 16.5g carbs, 7g fiber, 1g sugars, 38.5g protein

The recipe: "Hungry Girl 1-2-3", page 60

I love chicken parmesan, so this recipe really called out to me.  Actually, I love eggplant parmesan even more, but my husband won't touch anything I make with eggplant in it.  He must have had a bad experience with some poorly-made eggplant dish once, and now he insists he hates all eggplant!  Anyway, I decided to make this, which is my first time using Fiber One as a breading, or "faux frying", as Hungry Girl calls it. 

I was actually impressed by how good my chicken came out.  I must confess, sometimes I get distracted by the two kids while cooking, and my meals will come out overcooked or even slightly burnt.  Probably because I knew I would be photographing my food for this blog, I paid more attention to what I was doing.  The chicken was nice and moist, and I didn't burn the Fiber One coating at all.  Yippee!  It did take longer to cook than what the recipe called for, though.  Perhaps I didn't pound the chicken into thin enough cutlets?  Also, my shredded reduced fat mozzarella didn't melt into a nice gooey pile like the picture in the cookbook.  The cheese melted, but I could still see the individual shreds of cheese on top.  I do have to say that there was a nice-sized portion of cheese for each cutlet - a whole 1/4 cup.  Nice!

To round out the meal, I made a zero point salad, with 2 points+ ranch dressing (the new Litehouse Ranch with Kefir Yogurt - yum!).

Both my husband and I liked this meal, and he has already put in his request for me to make it again in the near future.  The coating on the chicken was nicely seasoned with the perfect amount of italian seasoning, garlic powder, onion powder, and salt and pepper.  The tomato sauce and the cheese on top really made it feel as though we were eating restaurant-style chicken parmesan.  I could tell the coating was made with Fiber One, however.  It had that high-fiber, slightly chewy texture you get with bread and cereal that is very, well, fibrous. I don't mind the texture, though, and my husband said he didn't, either.  But, if you are weird about foods that have a high-fiber texture, you might not like this chicken much.

My husband also said he thought the tomato sauce tasted odd, but I didn't have a problem with it at all.  It did taste different from traditional spaghetti sauce, since it was made from canned tomato sauce with italian seasoning in it.  I thought it worked well with the combination of flavors from the breaded chicken and the cheese.

I will definitely be making this again the next time we get another craving for some good italian food.  I know this chicken parmesan has MUCH less calories than the chicken parmesan from the italian resaurant down the street!  And it still tastes great!