Pizza's Long Lost Cousin....The Pepperoni Chicken

Pepperoni Chicken

Isn’t pizza one of the most perfect foods? I mean basically you are getting all of your food groups in one.  And I don’t know that I have ever had a BAD pizza.  Although I will state that I would never order a pizza that didn’t have a heaping amount of cheese, and I would never order a pizza with hearts of palm and anchovies. THOSE would be bad pizzas.  I should maybe rephrase and state that I have never ordered/purchased/ate a bad pizza.  Some have maybe been JV level pizzas and one or two maybe freshman team pizzas, but for the most part…..pizza is pizza and is still way better than vegetables.  If you live in MN/WI, I highly recommend trying “Brew Pub Pizza: Lottza Mottza”….it will change your life.

Hmmm….oh yes….pepperoni chicken!  When I was reading the ingredients and skimming the picture I thought this looked very similar to pizza so I thought I would give it the old college try.  And I have to say, it was one of the best experiments to date. It is right up with baked tacos.  Yes.  I said baked tacos so you know I am serious here. And it was totally fiet friendly which makes it that much better.

It starts with boring chicken breasts and then builds up to melty, gooey, cheesy perfection.

Ingredients:

·       1 lb of boneless skinless chicken breasts (although I haven’t tried it with precooked chicken I am sure this would be fine)

·       1 garlic clove minced

·       16 pieces of Turkey pepperoni

·       ¼ teaspoon dried oregano

·       2 teaspoons dried basil (or 2 Tablespoons fresh basil chopped in tiny pieces)

·       1 cup of shredded mozzarella (4 oz for those hand shredding the cheese)

·       1 ½ cups pasta sauce – I used roasted garlic flavor…is there such a thing as too much garlic? I think not.

·       Salt and Pepper

·       Garlic Salt

·       Italian seasoning

I know, I know….that doesn’t seem like many ingredients.  Less ingredients means easier in my book, and this was no exception.  I did shred the cheese by hand….did you know that myfitnesspal counts food preparation as cardiovascular exercise?  I did.  Hence shredding the cheese by hand.  I will take any calorie I can get.

Ok, first start by slicing into your chicken breast to make two equal sized portions.  Sort of like butterflying it, but cutting all the way through. Or I suppose you could use chicken cutlets.  But I will be honest that I don’t really know what these are….are those the raw chicken tenders?  Then make sure you have appropriately seasoned your chicken breasts.  Liberally salt and pepper both sides of each piece of chicken.  I also use garlic salt and a shake of Italian seasoning. There is nothing worse than bland chicken.  Do you know what it reminds me of? FIET FOOD.  Which is exactly what you don’t want it to taste like.  Fiet food should taste like real food with lower calories.  So please, I beg of you, for the love of everything holy, season your chicken.  Then cook your chicken all the way through in a pan just shy of medium heat. Oh…very important…make sure you either use a pan that is oven safe, or have an oven-safe dish ready that can go in the oven (I call these casserole dishes but whatevs).

While that is cooking, preheat your broiler. Then take 10 pieces of the pepperoni and chop them into little pieces.  Add to a small sauce pan with the garlic and sauté over medium low heat until the garlic starts to turn brown.  Then add the spaghetti sauce, oregano and basil (if you are using fresh basil maybe wait until the last minute so it doesn’t turn all brown and unappetizing).

When the chicken is fully cooked, spoon the spaghetti sauce mixture over each piece so that it is covered.  This should use about 1 cup of the sauce mixture.  Then top each piece with the shredded cheese.  Use all of the cheese.  There are starving children out there,  far be it from me to waste any. Oh and remember those 6 pieces of pepperoni that didn’t get used before?  Cut them in half, and place on each portion of chicken.  My 1 lb of chicken was 3 chicken breasts (or 6 after I cut them in half) so it ended up that each piece had two halves of pepperoni nestled on top.  But if you are all artsy and want to chop the pepperoni up and sprinkle on top, I will leave that up to you.

Now, place under the broiler but watch it very closely.  You just want the cheese to start turning brown.  Or the same color that you would prefer your pizza cheese. And don’t forget to use an oven mitt when you take the pan back out of the oven…or when you go to serve.  This is where I failed.  I totally remembered the oven mitt for retrieving from the oven.  But somewhere between seeing the glorious melted cheese and wanting it on my plate asap….I forgot that the pan was SUPER hot and I grabbed it.  I swore a few times and then remembered there were child ears nearby.  Parent fail.  Oh well, my parent of the year award will have to wait until next year.

Anyways, you could serve this over noodles if you want, just cook the noodles and then add to the remainder of the sauce.  I used a spaghetti squash so after I cooked the squash, (see the post on peanut sauce for directions), I scooped out the “noodles” and added to my ½ cup of leftover sauce.  This doesn’t seem like it would be enough sauce, but the star of the show is the pepperoni chicken.  We don’t need the bridesmaid trying to outshine the bride here…..

This recipe made 3 servings and each serving was 314 cals.  So I got two pieces of chicken smothered in cheese.   Then I added in the spaghetti squash at 42 cals.  And then Pepperidge farm garlic cheese toast at 150 cals a slice.  The entire meal was 506.  But if you don’t have as many calories left you could leave out the bread **sniffle**. 

Total fiet win!