Garlic Cheddar Chicken

This is a recipe I got in my email a while back and decided to try last night. It's from Allrecipes.

Garlic Cheddar Chicken

Ingredients:

2 tbsp butter

2 tbsp olive oil

3 cloves garlic, grated or minced

1 cup flour

⅔ cup Panko bread crumbs

¼ cup Parmesan

1 cup cheddar cheese, shredded

¼ tsp dried thyme

¼ tsp dried oregano

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°. Cover a baking sheet with foil and top with a baking rack. Coat with cooking spray.

Melt the butter and olive oil in a saucepan over low heat. Add the garlic and cook until tender, about 5 minutes. Spread the flour out in a shallow bowl or plate. In another shallow bowl, combine Panko, Parmesan, cheddar, thyme, and oregano.

Dip each chicken breast first in the flour, shake off excess, then dip in the garlic butter, then press into the bread crumb mixture. Arrange the coated chicken breasts on the prepared rack.

Bake 30 minutes, or until chicken is no longer pink.

Makes 4 servings.

Mmmm, this chicken is so good! Tender and juicy on the inside and garlicky, cheesy, and crunchy on the outside. Really tasty!

A few notes: The chicken breasts I use are actually cutlets, where I cut them in half so they aren't as thick. So I would suggest pounding them out if you have regular-sized ones. If not, they will take a lot longer to cook.

The garlic butter was supposed to be all butter, but I have been trying to cut back on using butter when I cook, so I did half butter and half olive oil. It worked just fine. I think it would probably even work with all olive oil. I'll try that next time.

I also increased the breading ingredients. It was supposed to be enough for four chicken breasts, but I got it to barely coat three. I also increased the garlic by a clove (we love garlic) and the thyme was originally parsley.

The original recipe said to bake this in a 9x13" baking dish, but a lot of the reviewers said that it got soggy on the bottom, so I did mine on a baking sheet with a rack. That worked out really well. Make sure you put foil underneath the rack on your baking sheet because a lot of breading falls through and that would be a big pain to scrape off.

If you like garlic and you like cheese, this recipe is for you! It reminds me of that old Taco Bell commercial: "Cruncheweesy!" :)