Chicken Parm healthy!

Ready for a super easy recipe that requires little prep and little planning? Make your chicken parm healthy! Baked spaghetti squash is a great, healthy veggie that tastes and looks like comfort food!! This recipe cuts the cheese in half, allows a low-fat ricotta to take center stage so you don’t miss the layers and layers of cheese but you gain ALL the flavor, if not more! Ricotta is the great kind of cheese that you can mix your seasoning into and the flavors are so intense that you don’t need a huge pile of cheese to make you believe you are eating comfort food!

For a healthy chicken parm, all you need is a spaghetti squash, leftover rotisserie chicken, low-fat ricotta, your choice of seasonings, tomato sauce, and Parmesan cheese for sprinkling. Got a bottle of J.O. Garlic Pepper yet? (it’s so delish you really should!) It just makes the spaghetti squash that much more enjoyable!

Cooking the spaghetti squash is super easy….Cut in half. Scoop out the seeds in the middle. Sprinkle with J.O. Garlic Pepper and drizzle olive oil. Roast in 375 oven for about 45-75 minutes, until tender, depending on size. This is one of those perfect recipes that you can do in stages if you feel that an hour is too long – but on school nights, putting the squash in the oven while you monitor homework makes you feel so accomplished!

Let it cool. Take a fork and “shred” out the inside and it really looks like spaghetti noodles, hence the name.

~If you don’t have leftover rotisserie chicken (I have a dog who adores chicken in every capacity so I rarely have leftovers), bake some chicken in J.O. Rotisserie Seasoning or J.O. Rib ‘n Chicken Seasoning until chicken is nice and tender. You can do this at the same time you are roasting your squash.

~Mix the ricotta cheese with J.O. Italian seasoning, J.O. Basil or J.O. Oregano – or all 3!

Layer some spaghetti squash on your plate or in a baking pan, ricotta mix, top with a spoonful of tomato sauce, sprinkle of Parmesan cheese, and either cut up the chicken or shred it depending on how long you baked/how tender it is, and add some more sauce and cheese to your liking. If it’s just on your plate – microwave until the cheese/sauce is hot/melted to your liking. If in a baking pan, bake until the cheese is melted and sauce is hot.

It has a lot of flavor and you’d be very, VERY surprised how hearty and filling the squash really is – and yummy. It’s a delicious way to lower calories, and as long as you are conscious of your salt content regarding the sauce and how much cheese you are putting in/on, you are having a fairly decent meal that is healthy compared to the fried chicken patty and the pasta that usually accompanies a chicken Parmesan!

Don’t be afraid to try something new,

🙂 Pamela