Chicken Sorrentino with Eggplant (2024)

4.84 from 12 votes

Course: dinner

Cuisine: Italian

Prep Time: 1 hour hour

Cook Time: 18 minutes minutes

Total Time: 1 hour hour 18 minutes minutes

Author: Mamma C

Breaded Eggplant

• ▢ 1 pound eggplant (preferably a skinny, long one so it has fewer seeds; see notes)
• ▢ ⅓ cup flour
• ▢ 2 extra large eggs
• ▢ ¾ cup plain bread crumbs
• ▢ ⅓ cup Romano cheese such as Pecorino
• ▢ ¼ teaspoon garlic powder
• ▢ ¼ teaspoon salt (not quite full)
• ▢ ¼ teaspoon black pepper

Marinara

• ▢ 1 quart marinara sauce (Make one batch of Cooking with Mamma C's marinara without onions. If serving with pasta, make two batches, which equals 2 quarts.)

Chicken

• ▢ 1 pound thin, boneless, skinless chicken breast cutlets (6 thin or 3 thick boneless, skinless chicken breasts)
• ▢ ⅛ teaspoon garlic powder
• ▢ ⅛ teaspoon salt
• ▢ ⅛ teaspoon pepper
• ▢ 2 tablespoons olive oil
• ▢ 3.5 ounces thinly sliced prosciutto (6 long slices)
• ▢ 6 ounces provolone cheese slices (10-12 round slices)
• ▢ 2 fresh basil leaves

Breaded Eggplant

• Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Grease a sheet pan with cooking spray.

• Rinse the eggplant and pat it dry. Place the eggplant on a cutting board and slice off the stem and root ends and discard them. If you wish to peel the eggplant (recommended), use a vegetable peeler to peel off the skin and discard it. Slice the eggplant into ⅓-inch thick rounds.

• Place the flour in a soup bowl or dinner plate. In another soup bowl, beat two eggs.

• Add the bread crumbs to a small mixing bowl or dinner plate. Stir in the Romano cheese, garlic powder, salt and pepper.

• Set up an assembly line from left to right with the eggplants, flour, eggs, bread crumb mixture and the prepared sheet pan. Have three forks ready.

• Use a fork to place an eggplant slice into the flour. Flour both sides, turning over once.

• Use another fork to transfer the eggplant slice into the beaten eggs. Turn over to coat both sides, then let the excess egg drip off. Place the eggplant slice into the bread crumbs.

• Use another fork to pat the crumbs onto the eggplant, then flip the slice over and bread the other side. Transfer the breaded eggplant to the greased pan.

• Continue breading all of the eggplant slices. Place the eggplant slices in a single layer on the sheet pan. Spray the entire surface of the eggplant rounds with cooking spray. (This is important to achieve crispiness.)

• Bake the eggplants for 15 minutes on the first side (or until golden brown). Remove the pan from the oven and flip over the eggplants with a spatula. Spray the tops with cooking spray and bake for another five minutes, or until golden brown. They can stay at room temperature for up to 2 hours before needing refrigeration. Lower the oven temperature to 350 degrees if you're going to be baking the Chicken Sorrentino soon.

Marinara Sauce

• Make one batch of Cooking with Mamma C's marinara sauce while eggplants are baking. (If you plan to serve pasta with this, make two batches of sauce.)

Chicken Sorrentino

• If starting with three thick chicken breasts, you'll need to slice each one into two thin cutlets (like splitting a deck of cards). Once you have six thin chicken cutlets, pound them on a cutting board using a meat mallet or the bottom of a heavy pan. Pound them so they are all the same thickness. (This tenderizes them too.) Wash hands well after handling raw meat.

• In a tiny bowl, add ⅛ teaspoon each of garlic powder, salt and pepper. Stir or whisk to combine. Sprinkle the seasoning mixture evenly onto the chicken.

• Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a 12-inch skillet over medium-high heat. When the pan is hot, add the chicken cutlets in a single layer. You should be able to fit them all snugly. Cook the first side for three minutes. Flip the chicken over and cook the second side for two minutes, then turn off the heat.

Assemble the Chicken Sorrentino

• Ladle ½ cup of marinara into a 9x13 pan and spread the sauce evenly along the bottom. (A standard ladle measures ½ cup.)

• Place the browned chicken in the pan, in a single layer. Top each cutlet with one slice of prosciutto. (If the prosciutto is longer than the piece of chicken, you can fold the meat if needed to fit nicely on top.)

• Top each cutlet with two breaded eggplant slices, side by side. (See photos in the post.) You will need at least 12 slices of eggplant but will have extra. You can add them to the pan with the chicken or just save those to eat later. Dot some sauce onto the eggplant slices in the pan.

• Cover the eggplant slices with the provolone. You'll need two slices of provolone, side by side, for each large chicken cutlet and one slice of cheese for smaller pieces of chicken.

• Bake, uncovered, for 10 minutes at 350 degrees F. The cheese should be melted. Then, broil under high heat for 2 ½ minutes or until the cheese is browned.(Watch carefully during broiling, so nothing burns.)

• Remove the chicken from the oven and let it sit for five minutes. Stack the basil leaves and roll them into a cylinder. Snip the basil into ribbons with scissors or cut them with a small knife. Sprinkle the basil ribbons onto the chicken.

• To serve, ladle some marinara sauce onto each plate and place the chicken on top of the sauce. (Or, serve over pasta and ladle sauce on top.)

• Store leftover Chicken Sorrentino covered in the refrigerator for up to four days. Refrigerate extra breaded eggplant slices for up to four days. Refrigerate extra marinara separately for up to a week. Each of these items may be frozen.

Eggplant

You need 12 baked breaded eggplant slices for this recipe. A 1-pound eggplant will yield about 26 slices (but some will be small). You can add some extra eggplant slices to the pan with your chicken or just enjoy the extras as a side dish/snack.

Make ahead

You can bread the eggplant slices a day ahead of baking them. Refrigerate them on a greased sheet pan lightly covered with foil or wax paper but wait to spray the surface of the eggplant until just before baking them.

You also can make and bake the eggplant slices a day ahead and refrigerate them on a sheet pan, lightly covered. Bring them to room temperature before assembling the Chicken Sorrentino.

Freezing instructions

You can freeze breaded eggplant slices without baking them first, or even after they're cooked. If cooked, let them cool off before freezing them.

Place the eggplant rounds on a wax-paper-lined sheet pan and flash freeze them for two hours. Then, transfer them to a freezer bag, separating the layers with wax paper. Use the frozen eggplant within three months.

I haven't tried freezing the Chicken Sorrentino, but it should work well. Freeze the sauce separately.