Slow Cooker Chicken Parmesan

Monday Night Adventures

Chicken parmesan used to be a favorite supper at our house once upon a time.  I was looking for something different to make in my new slow cooker, and decided to see if this recipe from Mom on Timeout could be tweaked to be on-plan for a Medifast Lean and Green meal.  The resulting dish definitely lacks the crispiness of the breaded chicken in traditional chicken parmesan, but is tasty and easy to prepare. 

The original recipe calls for spaghetti sauce from a jar, but most have added sugar and/or too many carbs to work on the 5 and 1 plan.  However, it's simple enough to create your own sauce using canned diced tomatoes.  I don't like chunky sauce, so I blended the tomatoes in the Magic Bullet to make the sauce smoother.  This recipe contains 10 green servings.  To make a complete Lean and Green, you could serve each portion with a serving of shirataki noodles, or you could add 5 total servings of on-plan vegetables of your choice (mushrooms, peppers, for example) to the sauce. 

Note:  do not use dried basil for this recipe.  You can find prechopped fresh basil in tubes in the produce department of the grocery store.

Ingredients

30 oz boneless, skinless chicken breasts (4 leans)
28 oz diced tomatoes (7 greens)
1 1/2 tsp minced garlic (1 1/2 condiments)
1 1/2 tsp onion powder (3 condiments)
1 tsp Italian seasoning (2 condiments)
3 tbsp fresh basil, chopped (3/32 condiment)
1 cup reduced fat mozzarella, shredded (1 lean)
1/2 cup shredded parmesan (8 condiments)
3 cups fresh spinach, chopped (3 greens)

Instructions

Combine tomatoes, garlic, onion powder, Italian seasoning and spinach in slow cooker.  Cut chicken breasts into strips or chunks and brown in nonstick skillet.  Add chicken to slow cooker, making sure all pieces are covered by the sauce.  Cook on low 5 hours, until chicken is done.  Stir in fresh basil.

The original recipe says to top chicken and sauce mixture with parmesan and mozzarella and cook in the slow cooker with the lid off until cheese is melted.  I was in a hurry to get dinner on the table, so I put the chicken and sauce mixture into a casserole dish, topped it with parmesan first, then mozzarella, and broiled it until cheese was melted and browned.

5 servings
Per serving, 1 lean, 2 greens,  3 condiments
306 calories, 9.1 grams fat, 402 mg sodium, 8.5 grams carbohydrates, 2.4 grams fiber, 54.0 grams protein
Nutrition values may vary a bit depending on which brands of chicken and reduced fat mozzarella cheese you use.  Since this recipe has less than 10 grams of fat with my ingredients, I could use a tsp of olive oil to brown the chicken for a healthy fat.  I used Goldn Plump All Natural chicken, which has most of the fat trimmed off.  Other brands of chicken have more fat.  Calculate the recipe's nutrition values with the brands that you are using; you may find that you do not need a healthy fat.