Panko Crusted Chicken Pasta

The word fusion sounds fancy, doesn’t it? Well, lucky for you — this word exists outside of restaurants. Creating fusion dishes at home can be just as exciting as dining out at say, your favorite Mexican-Korean restaurant.

I created this dish completely by accident. I was attempting to make parmesan crusted chicken pasta, but realized halfway through prep that we didn’t have parmesan at home *doh! It did, however, turn into a very tasty dish. So if you decide to give this dish a chance, I hope you’ll find it just as enjoyable as my boyfriend and I did.

Ingredients:

• Deep Fryer (preferred)
• 1 Can Panko Bread Crumbs
• 2 Pieces Chicken Breasts
• Angel Hair Pasta
• 4 Roma Tomatoes – Diced
• Thyme Seasoning
• Basil Seasoning
• Italian Seasoning
• 2 Cloves Garlic – Minced
• 1/4 Tsp Salt
• 3 Tbsp Olive Oil
• 2 Eggs – Beaten
• Mozarella Cheese

Directions:

• Whisk 2 eggs in a bowl until mixed together and lightly beaten. Set aside.
• Pour Panko bread crumbs into a medium sized bowl. Start with a quarter of the way full of bread crumbs, and add more if necessary.
• Dress each chicken breast individually with the beaten eggs mixture and transfer to the bowl with bread crumbs. Press the chicken breast into the bread crumbs firmly until entire breast is coated evenly.
• In the deep fryer, cook one chicken breast at a time.
• While waiting for the chicken to fry up, you can start prepping the pasta as well as the sauce. Once chicken is cooked, let it cool before cutting them into strips.
• Angel Hair Pasta — cook and drain. Mix 2 Tbsp of olive oil and mix with pasta thoroughly. This helps prevent the pasta from sticking together and also adds a little flavor profile to the noodles. Set aside.
• Boil tomatoes until ready to peel. Peel tomatoes and remove seeds then transfer to frying pan. Add remaining 1 Tbsp of olive oil and smash the tomatoes with the spatula.
• Add a few shakes each of basil, thyme and Italian seasoning, salt, and minced garlic – mix well.
• Reduce heat to low and let simmer, checking the consistency of the sauce five minutes at a time. If you like your sauces to be thinner, you can add 1/4 cup of water to help thin it out a bit. Without the water, the sauce comes out about medium thick-ish.
• Place Angel Hair Pasta on a plate and the Panko chicken strips on top. Top pasta with tomato sauce on the side opposite the chicken and sprinkle chicken with mozzarella cheese. You can microwave the dish for 15 seconds to melt the cheese onto the strips. This way you can melt the cheese without drying out your dish.

Total time is about 20 minutes or so, and you’ve made yourself an Asian-Italian fusion dish. The Panko bread crumbs give the chicken a nice crunch while you’re savoring this dish, and the homemade pasta sauce is made seasoned to your liking. Some pre-made sauces are either too thin, too sweet or too salty for my taste. After discovering this dish, it’s really hard to go back buying pre-made sauces 😉

Happy Cooking!