Chicken Parm Nachos
Inspiration for this recipe
Little triangles of chicken parm, topped with cheese and sauce and served nacho style! It’s really the best of both worlds. Crispy chicken “chips” with so much cheese! It’s a great way to serve chicken parm as an appetizer instead of the main course.
With all this chicken-as-the-taco-shell business going on, we never realized that a taco shell is also a tortilla chip. So I fixed this omission and made these chicken parm nachos. You’re welcome internet! These tasted amazing and it wasn’t hard for me to eat a ton of them, but there are no real surprises. It’s just chicken parm served a different way. A nacho way.
Making the chicken parm chips for the nachos
Step one is to slice the chicken thin, pound it out a little, and then cut it into chip shapes. Put your hand on top of the chicken as seen in the photo below, and run your knife through the chicken breast. Then put each piece in between two sheets of parchment and pound it out!
Once it is nice and thin, make the chip shapes.
Breading and frying the chicken parm chips
You know the deal, flour, egg, and breadcrumbs with Parmesan cheese. Dip, dip dip!
Fry up the chips in a thin layer of olive oil until they are super crispy on both sides. I cooked these a bit longer than I would for traditional chicken parm. That is because I wanted the chicken parm to be extra crispy and not lose the crisp when they baked together as nachos.
Building the chicken parm nachos
Layers of chicken parm, then sauce and cheese. Make sure to leave some chicken with no covering because these areas will stay the most crispy. It also makes handles that are good place to grab when eating.
Serving the chicken parm nachos
A great little chicken parm snack! Love the way these came out. After they go into the oven, top them with some parsley and chili flake before serving.
Try and place the cheese so that the “chips” have a place for people to grab them. I went a little overzealous with the cheese and some of the chips were fully covered and harder to grab, but hey can you blame me? I was so excited!
Twists on this recipe
You could make the chicken parm nachos much easier with some store bought chicken nuggets. I would still try and cook them extra hot so they get super crispy. Also, I always suggest to do this with your favorite ingredients. I wrote “tomato sauce” in the recipe and that can mean store bought or your family recipe.
For more unique nacho ideas, check out my gnocchi nachos, scallion pancake nachos, or this crazy benedict nacho!
Chicken Parm Nachos
Ingredients
- 2 chicken breasts
- 1 cup flour
- 2 eggs
- 2 cups breadcrumbs
- 1 cup grated parm
- olive oil
- 1 cup tomato sauce
- 1 cup mozzarella cheese
- parsley and red pepper flakes
Instructions
- Butterfly the chicken by slicing it in half the long way, creating two or three thinner pieces of chicken. Cover with parchment paper and pound the chicken even thinner. Cut the chicken into triangles.
- Place the flour in one bowl, the eggs in another (beaten), and mix the breadcrumbs and cheese in a third. Season each bowl with salt and pepper.
- Bread the chicken triangles by dipping them in the flour first, then the egg, then coating with the breadcrumb and cheese mixture.
- Fry the chicken "chips" in a half inch or so of olive oil, about 5 at a time depending on the size of your frying pan. Flip once during frying to brown on both sides. Remove to a drying rack or paper towel.
- Build the nachos by stacking up the “chips” in layers with cheese and sauce. Bake at 400 for about 15 minutes until the cheese is melty delicious.
- Top with fresh parsley and red pepper flakes and serve.