Maria Aviles: If you’re like me, you can always use quick, easy to prepare healthy recipes. Here’s a great one to try.
Tammy: Hi, I’m Tammy.
Lyssie: And I’m Lyssie and we’re the nutrition twins.
Tammy: We’ve got a great, healthy, easy recipe for you today. And it’s pretty fool proof even she can get it right.
Lyssie: And even you can get it right. And it’s great for busy moms and just busy people in general who really has time to cook, none of us do these days. And we have a great recipe to help you out. It’s healthy chicken parmesan. And all you need are chicken breast, skinless and boneless, egg whites, tomato sauce, low fat cheese and reduced fat parmesan cheese, and Italian breadcrumbs.
Tammy: The chicken breasts are a great source of lean protein. Lean protein and all protein is made up of amino acids which are the buildings blocks for healthy cells.
Lyssie: And also notice that Tammy said this breast is skinless. First of all, we’re starting with the breast and that means that choice alone over dark meat, we’re saving hundreds of calories. Then we’re also taking of the skin, having the skin removed is cutting the fat and calories in half.
Tammy: okay, so now let’s get started. All we have to do is take the chicken breast and dip it right into the egg white. Egg whites are also a great source of protein and they’re very low in calories. Surprisingly, each egg white is only 15 calories.
Lyssie: That’s right Tammy. And chicken is a great source of iron as well. And when you’re pregnant, your blood volume actually doubles. That means you have twice as much blood as you had before. So, you really need extra iron so that you can get more red blood cells. So chicken is a great option. That’s right. And we dip the chicken in the egg white so we’re going to toss it right into the bag here.
Lyssie: In your traditional chicken parmesan recipe, you pour oil in the pan or you pour butter in the pan and that’s how you get the bread crumbs to stick. By us using these egg whites, we are saving hundreds of calories and you’ll save hundreds of calories, too.
Tammy: That’s right. Shake it up Lyssie. Let me try.
Lyssie: Lyssie always fight over doing this in our house when we were kids. So, if you have kids and you want to get them involved in cooking, this is a great way. Just give them a chance to give it a shake.
Tammy: Okay. So now all you do is you take the chicken breast right out of the bag.
Lyssie: Got it?
Tammy: I got it.
Lyssie: Good for you.
Tammy: It is slippery and I'm putting it right into the pan here. Our next step, very easy, we take the tomato sauce and we pour it right on top.
Lyssie: I'll let you do that Tammy.
Tammy: Tomato sauce is a great source of vitamin C. So, the vitamin C in tomato sauce is helping the iron in the chicken to be absorbed. How neat is that?
Lyssie: And also vitamin C is very important when you’re pregnant because you need it for your baby’s bone development and cartilage development as well.
Tammy: Also for wound healing, it’s really important. Our next step, we’re going to take the low fat cheese. Lyssie, do you want to do the honors?
Lyssie: Sure. Now the great thing about this cheese is that it’s low fat. And cheese in general is a great source of protein but also a great source of calcium. And when you’re pregnant, you need calcium for your own bones, but you also need it for your baby’s bones. Aim for about three to four servings of dairy products a day.
Tammy: You’re looking good Lyssie.
Lyssie: Thank you.
Tammy: All right, now, all we have to do before baking it is take a little bit of parmesan cheese and sprinkle it right on top, just like so. All we do is we stick it directly in the oven 350 degrees, it depends how quickly your oven bakes things, but for the average, it’s about 20 to 40 minutes, just make sure that the chicken is thoroughly cooked and that the cheese is very well browned on top and it will be great. Here we go. Look that. That’s a finished, quick, healthy and easy chicken parmesan, a great thing to do. Anytime you have a meal, here we have our lean protein and we have some dairy, always be sure to also have a whole grain, also make sure to include vegetables. Here, we’ve got broccoli and spinach, both are great sources of folic acid to help prevent neural tube defects.
Lyssie: Looks delicious!
Tammy: Yeah and let’s just put this right on the plate.
Lyssie: Oh, I'm ready to enjoy.
Tammy: Me, too.
Lyssie: We hope you do, too!
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