Incredibly Delicious Pesto Chicken Cutlets

It's practically summer, which means we're breaking out the pesto, we're breaking out the tomatoes, and we're gonna make some cutlets because I don't know about you, does not matter what time of the year, when you make chicken cutlets everyone runs to the table. So I'm gonna make a pesto cutlet with a little pesto tomato mozzarella situation, delicious, stellar, fantastic all summer long, great for meal prep if you're into that kind of thing, very simple. You're gonna just make cutlets however you usually make cutlets. For me, it's pounded chicken breast and I'll show you how I like mine, I like mine just like that, I don't like it see-through because you're working with chicken breast, which you already know does not have a lot of fat, which means it can dry out really quickly. And then you do your dredging station how you want, I am gonna do a little bit of flour here, which I don't always do, but in this case I'm going to, I'm gonna season my chicken, I seasoned my chicken really, but I did season all the elements, I just added some salt to my flour, this is a couple of eggs from our chicks and some parm and some milk with a pinch of salt, this is both kinds of breadcrumbs, I've got plain, I've got panko and I've got freshly grated parm, I'm not a fan of pre-seasoned breadcrumbs because I always feel like the cheese in those breadcrumbs just never tastes good, so personal preference but you do you. And some pepper, I don't do a lot of spices for the most part in my chicken cutlets because I think the beauty of chicken cutlets is that they taste like a chicken cutlet. And then you can have fun with what you do with them, you can eat them as is, sometimes you can eat them like a protein bar and it's grand, and then sometimes you'll add them with a topping or you'll put them in a sandwich and then you can do quite literally whatever you want with them and it won't compete, I don't like strong assertive flavors, I don't like chunks of things in my chicken cutlets, so this is how I do them but by all means just make the chicken cutlet that you are used to, that you grew up with, that you love and it will always come out absolutely perfect. I just flipped my chicken, I'm going to lightly season with some salt and pepper on the other side, every time you season you want to lightly season because we are fans of making sure every element is well seasoned so you have a perfectly balanced, perfectly seasoned end result. I'm going to quickly whisk my eggs with my parm and my milk and I'm going to show you, I'm going to make a couple of cutlets plain because you know I do have a nine-year-old and she is a little bit picky but she loves mama's chicken cutlets so we keep them plain in the fridge, we do a few batches a week probably and she loves them so I'm just going to make a couple of little ones for her, I'm just going to dip into the flour, shake off any excess into the eggs, I'm going to do a few of those and I'm going to show you what I'm going to do next but you already know the drill, you dip them into the flour, you dip them into the eggs, you want to make sure that they're all well coated and then you dip them into your breadcrumbs, you can do all plain breadcrumbs, for this I really love the mixture of the panko and the plain because you kind of get an even coating from the plain but an extra layer of crunch with the panko and shake off the excess and it's really important you let this sit on a platter, on a baking sheet, whatever for a good five to ten minutes. What happens is the breadcrumbs will adhere to your chicken so when you add them to your hot oil the breadcrumb isn't going to fall off of your chicken and it sort of runs through the oil and gets burned and then your chicken's kind of bare, do you know what I'm saying? It's really important to do that and I'm just going to do the same thing to a couple more and then I'm going to show you what I'm going to do with a few of them to turn them into my pesto chicken cutlets. I did a few plain ones for my little tootsie pop for dinner tonight but I'm going to show you how I turn these into my pesto ones. This is my homemade pesto, I uploaded a video on how I make this really quick, under two minutes, you can go ahead and watch it, this is my favorite pesto recipe, it's the best pesto recipe, it's vibrant, it's alive, it's gorgeous, it's magnificent. What I like to do just to give the chicken cutlets like a pesto flavor from within, I take about a really good heaping tablespoon, maybe a little bit more, okay let's just say two tablespoons and I add that directly to my egg mixture, what this does is it will literally infuse your chicken with that gorgeous basil cheesy garlic pesto flavor from the very beginning, so what I mean is when you're biting into a chicken cutlet that's topped with pesto and tomatoes and mozzarella, fantastic! But the chicken cutlet itself doesn't have that strong vibrant flavor but now it does, this is such a great thing for you to do to all kinds of things that you're going to bread this summer, if you're breading fish add a little bit of pesto to the batter, it really brings it to life, it just adds that gorgeous summer flair, summer flavor, it's so fantastic especially when your pesto, I'm not going to say but you know, is as good as mine, I'm being honest with you, it is so fragrant, it's so beautiful, it stays vibrantly green in the fridge for up to a week, you just want to make sure that every time you put it back into the fridge you just add a small little layer of olive oil to the top to keep any air from going through and touching the actual basil itself, otherwise it will oxidize, that is going to be phenomenal, you already know it! So I'm going to continue to do the rest but this is what I wanted to show you, you see how in here I added a little bit of olive oil, when I use pesto for my salad I'm just going to add a little bit more olive oil to the top so it seals that basil in and it keeps it this gorgeous green color all week long. I'm going to continue with the rest of my cutlets and I'll show you the next step. All of my cutlets are ready, they've been sitting for a while, you see when I pick it up there's not a bunch of that breading that's just going to fall all over the place because it took some time to adhere to your chicken, okay? I'm going to cook this in some olive oil, not extra virgin, this is just regular olive oil, cook them in batches because you do not want to overcrowd your pan, and I am going to place them on a wire rack when they come out because if I put them on a paper towel lined plate what I find is that the bottom can get a little bit soggy if you're not careful, so I put them on a little rack and that just keeps them really crispy and really gorgeous, I'm going to cook them in batches, like I said I feel like I've got a broken record, and in the meantime all I'm going to do is dice up some tomatoes, these are beautiful colorful cherry tomatoes, and I've got some mozzarella here, this is not like fresh mozz in the bowl, this is that low moisture mozz and I like this for things like on top of a cutlet only because it doesn't have as much moisture so it doesn't make my breading soggy, do you know what I'm trying to say? I also feel like if you make a bigger batch of it, it stays in the fridge and keeps better longer so I'm just going to cut these in half, add them to my bowl with some mozz and call it a day. Look at how gorgeous and stunning these cutlets are, they are my cutlets of dream, these are the plain ones and these are the ones with the pesto in them, just keep in mind that the added pesto does add added moisture to your cutlets so be careful when cooking them that you don't take them too far and you burn them, but these are absolute perfection. All we're going to do is top it with the mozz and the tomatoes and all I'm doing to this is adding some of my homemade pesto because this has everything, this has garlic, this has parm, this has salt, this has lemon, this has everything. You might want to add just a little bit more salt but for the most part you don't need to add any garlic, you don't need to add any extra oil because the pesto has everything in there and it's so beautifully vibrant and gorgeous, you will just absolutely love it. To me this is like a perfect summertime, cook these outside because you know I love cooking outside because if I don't have to shallow fry in my house I will not. Cook them outside, just have your friends around, kids love, who doesn't love a chicken cutlet, you know what I mean? If you know someone that doesn't like a chicken cutlet, may I suggest not inviting them over for dinner ever but for the most part everyone I know loves a chicken cutlet and I just spoon this right down the middle and when I do go to serve it I am going to add a few lemon wedges around the edges and I am going to add some fresh basil leaves just because of course it looks a bit more presentable and abundant and beautiful and all those things but that's pretty much it, it's simple, it's easy, it's proper home food, it highlights the summer flavors, highlights the idea of home cooking just being at the forefront that should be at the forefront of everything that we do. There's a knife right here, I'm just going to take a piece of this cutlet. Nice and crispy, oh look at that, I want you to see, okay? No dry food here, look at this. Gorgeous, right? You can actually see the pesto. Oh! Yeah, I shall be making these all summer. You better do the same thing, you understand? Delicious! Check the description down below, recipe, link to the website, all the things, please make them, you will love them! I'll see you next time, bye! Ow!