As many of you know, I am a big fan of quinoa and I have been ever since I first tried it. You can use quinoa in surprisingly many ways and I have been enjoying experimenting with different ways of using it over the last few years. My next experiment was to use it as a replacement for breadcrumbs to get a crispy coating on chicken (or other things) that was inspired by the fact that when you bake or toast cooked quinoa it gets nice and crispy. One of the first things that came to mind to try the quinoa coating on was chicken parmesan which typically consists of breaded chicken that is fried or baked and then covered in a marinara sauce and melted cheese. The recipe for the quinoa crusted version of chicken parmesan could not be simpler, you pretty much just take your basic baked chicken parmesan recipe and replace the breadcrumbs with cooked quinoa.
The cooked quinoa coating on the chicken toasted up nice and crispy and golden brown on the chicken just like bread crumbs and I quite enjoyed the texture of it! Now that I know that the quinoa coating works I can’t wait to try it on other things! Crispy quinoa crusted zucchini fries anyone?
Serve with a salad for an easy light meal.
Crispy Baked Quinoa Crusted Chicken Parmesan
Healthy baked, crispy quinoa crusted chicken parmesan topped with melted cheese and marinara sauce.
ingredients
- 4 (4-6 ounce) boneless, and skinless chicken breasts
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1/4 cup flour
- 1 egg, lightly beaten
- 1 1/2 cups cooked quinoa (~1/2 cup dry cooked with 1 cup liquid)
- 1 teaspoon italian seasoning blend
- 1 cup mozzarella, shredded
- 1/4 cup parmigiano regginao (parmesan), grated
- 2 cups marinara sauce, hot
- 2 tablespoons basil, torn
directions
- Season the chicken with salt and pepper, dredge in flour, dip in egg and coat in the mixture of the quinoa and italian seasoning.
- Place the chicken on a rack on a baking pan and bake in a preheated 400F/200C oven until cooked and lightly golden brown, about 25-30 minutes.
- Transfer the chicken to a baking dish, top with the cheese and broil until it has melted, about 2-4 minutes.
- Plate the chicken and top with hot marinara sauce and fresh torn basil and enjoy!
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I love the crispy quinoa!! It looks so perfect!!
Great way to use quinoa!
Kevin,
You are crazy good, genius and inspiring. Love your stuff. Made the Tarragon Chicken this past weekend. The best!!
Awesome way to use quinoa!
I have been meaning to try a quinoa crusted chicken, it looks so good!
This is such a creative way to use quinoa Kevin!
This sounds fantastic! I adore chicken parm, and totally digging the crunchy quinoa addition, Kevin.
omg- my kids would scarf this down while never realizing they had consumed quinoa!
mmmm quinoa crust?! totally on board with that!!
Beautiful colors! I've been wanting to try quinoa as a crust, and am glad to hear it works out so beautifully.
Such a unique twist on quinoa, great recipe. Thanks for sharing this!
Great idea Kevin. I like the use of quinoa for breading the chicken 🙂 Thanks for sharing this!
oh neat! Never thought to "bread" something in Quinoa!
never ever thought to use quinoa as a breading – love it! got to try!
Love this scrumptious spin on one of my favorite comfort foods, Kevin! Lovely recipe!
Yum!! What a brilliant & tasty idea!
What a great new way to eat quinoa! This will be going in the rotation for sure! thanks 🙂
This is such a good use of quinoa! Love it!!
Sues
Totally smitten with this chicken!
What a brilliant idea!! Can't wait to try it!!
Fantastic family friendly meal!
Thank you for the recipe! I just made this tonight, I really loved it…my kids rebelled at first at the different texture but not for too long!My husband and I both liked it a lot…what a great idea, thank you for sharing. I will definitely be making this again, so healthy!!
I made this for a dinner party potluck type of event. I cut up the chicken into slightly-bigger-than-nugget proportions before I did the flour, egg, and quinoa breading. It was a huge hit!! My only suggestion would be to put in slightly more quinoa than the recipe calls for, like 3/4 cup rather than 1/2, I really had to stretch the quinoa breading towards the end. The crunchiness was unexpected and everyone really enjoyed it! I used multi-colored quinoa, so it was especially pretty. A fairly easy recipe that is mighty impressive!
Sounds delicious! Can I use gluten-free bisquick or a little cornstarch in place of the flour for coating? I have celiac and cannot do the flour.
Anonymous: Yes that would work or you could use another gluten-free flour like rice flour.
I tried this recipe for lunch today and would recommend it. Simple & quick & a great way to use quinoa!
And with a minor modification, gluten free! Put cooking some quinoa on my todo list…
 If we hadn’t had spaghetti last night I’d be making this tonight
I have the quinoa and brown rice blend packet. Do you think that would work?
CleanQueen: I have not tried that, I would say that it should work and now I'm really curious!
Tried it with the quinoa wild rice mixture. We didn't like the flavor.