One day I was listening to Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, and they said apparently chicken parmesan is some kind of millennial aphrodisiac. Well this version is way sexier because it is meatless and dairy free.

As always, if you dig this recipe, tag me at @draggedthroughthegarden on instagram and we can talk about Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me.

Vegan Chicken Parmesan. Also known as Vegan Chicky Chicky Parm Parm.

VEGAN CHICKEN PARMESAN

prep time: 20 minutes
cook time: 65 minutes

There aren’t as many pictures in this one but I’ll do my best to walk you through it. Serve this with spaghetti noodles…or don’t. But it’s better if you do.

This dish is relatively easy to make. The most time consuming aspect is constructing your sauce, but once you sauce is cooking, you can…..do other stuff.

What you’ll need:

white onion
garlic
vegan butter
olive oil
fresh basil
canned tomatoes
baby bella mushrooms
vegan parm
vegan mozz
gardein cutlets (two bags)
salt
pepper
red pepper flakes
oregano
dried basil
spaghetti

First, dice up a white onion and a whole bulb of garlic. Then heat up some olive oil in a big pot. Dice up a bunch of mushrooms too. Heat up a small pot with salted water and cook your spaghetti in there. Follow the directions on the package. Once your spaghetti is cooked, add olive oil and vegan butter. And then sprinkle some dried basil on there. NOW BACK TO THE PARM.

Like this. The mushrooms were chopped previously and bagged off.

Add your onion into the pot after your olive oil is of temperature. Let them brown and be sure not to burn them. After you see some color in the onions, add your garlic into the pot and stir them thangs up. Then once they get some color too, add your mushrooms in and keep stirring. Add salt and pepper to the pot.

Open your can of tomatoes, and add the entire can into the pot. Be sure to pull out any greenery that comes in the can, don’t add it to the pot. Stir the tomatoes and sauce thoroughly and bring your temperature up. Using a wooden spoon or something, start to crush the tomatoes as they cook so they blend more evenly into the sauce.

Here’s what it looks like only adding some of the tomatoes so you can see the base layer.

Add a generous amount of oregano and red pepper flakes into the pot. Dice up some fresh basil and add that directly into the sauce. All of these components will add fragrance and depth to your sauce. Once your sauce is bubbling from the temperature, put a lid on it and drop the flame to medium-low to simmer.

Next, while your sauce simmers, you can get your vegan chicken things ready and grate down some parm.

I used a brick of violife parm. Grate down lots of it.

As for your cutlets, I highly suggest these. They say turk’y but we making chick’y.

The directions on the Gardein cutlets say to bake them, but for this recipe you will be searing them in the pan.

Heat up some oil in a non-stick pan and add your cutlets. I was able to fit four in the pan at once. Do however many you feel comfortable keeping an eye on. Sear the cutlets on both sides and season with salt and pepper. The cutlets are going to get baked directly in the sauce later so the important part is that they are moderately crispy on each side.

Now that you have a bunch of cooked cutlets, you’re going to bring everything together in a cast iron skillet.

Next, add some oil into your cast iron and spread it out evenly so there aren’t any globs of oil in your skillet. Add your cutlets into the skillet and throw some of the grated parm on each one of them.

Now you’re going to transfer your sauce directly into the cast iron providing a delicious swimming pool of red sauce for your cutlets to swim in. Be sure to get some sauce underneath the cutlets as well. Preheat your oven to 400°. This part I don’t have pictures for so bear with me. Now you have a big skillet full of red sauce. Around the perimeter of the skillet, add like six knobs of vegan butter that will seep down the sides of the skillet while baking.

Put the whole skillet in the oven and cook uncovered for twenty minutes. After those twenty minutes, carefully pull the skillet out without burning yourself and stir the contents. Add pretty much an entire bag of vegan mozz on top of the contents of your skillet. Spread it as evenly as possible.

Throw the skillet back in the oven for twenty more minutes. Pull it out and stir it up again. This time add lots of grated vegan parm from earlier into the skillet. Put the skillet back in the oven for fifteen more minutes or more if it looks like it could use more time.

Starting to look better but still not done.

Keep an eye on your skillet and keep cooking if need be. At the end of baking it, switch your oven to a high broil setting and leave it in the oven for about three minutes. Just keep an eye on it so you don’t burn the shit out of everything. Remove the skillet carefully and let it cool down. After your broil, you should have a nice crust on top of your chicky parm. Add a little more of the grated parm on top of everything and fill your tummy with vegan chicken parm greatness.

Serve on a festive paper plate. Or just a regular plate.