Italian Chicken Melt with Homemade Marinara Sauce
Updated Apr. 29th, 2024
Nothing compares to the comfort food of a good old fashion chicken melt! This healthy, chicken Parmesan-inspired recipe calls for the goodness of real ingredients, with the same homemade marinara sauce you know and love, only it’s a little more forgiving when it comes to how much time you have to make it! Whip up this tasty dish for dinner and serve with pasta for the ultimate level of comfort. With the smells wafting through your kitchen, you’ll have everyone rushing to set the dinner table in hopes they can eat it quicker!
- Dairy Free
- Corn Free
- Sugar Free
Ingredients:
| marinara sauce | ||
|---|---|---|
| 6 tablespoons olive oil | 3 handfuls of chopped fresh parsley | pepper |
| 1 medium yellow onion, finely diced | 1 clove garlic, minced | ½ cup white wine |
| 8 fresh tomatoes, or 28oz can of stewed tomatoes | 2 handfuls of fresh oregano | |
| 1 6oz can of tomato paste | ¼ teaspoon himalayan salt |
| casserole | ||
|---|---|---|
| 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, pounded thin | ¼ cup almond milk | marinara sauce [from above] |
| ½ cup almond flour | 2 eggs | 1 cup mozzarella cheese |
| 1 cup breadcrumbs | ¼ cup coconut oil | ½ cup pepperoni, chopped |
Directions
Marinara Sauce:
- In a saucepan, bring your olive oil and onions to a light sauté, for no more that five minutes.
- As you’re waiting, combine all other ingredients into a blender or food processor and blend until well incorporated.
- Bring both mixtures together by adding your blended contents into your saucepan. Turn heat to low, and bring to a simmer for 20-30 minutes.
Chicken Melt:
Preheat oven to 400F
- In a large frying pan over medium heat, melt your coconut oil.
- Grab two small, shallow dishes. In the first, use your flour and breadcrumbs to make a breading – mix together. In the second bowl, whisk together your eggs and almond milk until frothy.
- Grab your pounded chicken breast and cover it fully in the egg mixture, and quickly over to the breadcrumb mixture. Make sure the breast is fully coated and then gently place in the frying pan. Repeat with all breasts.
- Cook chicken fully and then transfer from the frying pan into a casserole dish.
- Pour your marinara sauce overtop of the chicken (it should be fully coated!). Sprinkle on some cheese and top with a few slices of cured Italian meat.
- Place casserole dish in the oven and bake for 10-15 minutes. Serve hot!
Make It This Way
If you wish to make this recipe dairy-free, replace the sprinkled cheese for a non-dairy cheese, or leave it off altogether.
Try This
Make your own breadcrumbs for this recipe by using up old pieces of bread. Or better yet, use gluten-free slices for an even more wholesome health dish!
This Italian Chicken Melt with Homemade Marinara Sauce looks delicious and so creamy. I love marinara sauce and anything that is melty and creamy is a huge comfort food for me, I personally love to add hot sauce to these kinds of dishes and this seems like the perfect treat to make on a colder day or just when you are in need of a fun nostalgic reminder. I love these kinds of dishes so knowing how ot make them yourself is always a great thing!
Hello,
It is delicious, we hope you enjoy it once you try it too! A caesar salad would go well with this dish too, check out this vegan caesar dressing recipe:
https://www.nationalnutrition.ca/articles/healthy-recipes/vegan-caesar-dressing/
Have a healthy day!
This melt is a healthier version of a melt with the wonderful herbs, healthier oil, eggs, and healthy fat from nuts, as well as leaner/healthier protein from chicken. I think that the use of almond in this recipe is really clever-of course it has health benefits but there is also practical utility to it and think this is a great idea here. I will be sending this one to my Mother because I think that she would like to sneak in almond ingredients into some of her recipes in a similar way. Thank you for the inspiration, NN! :)