Frozen Pasta Chicken Parmesan 15 minute meal

Tonight Mr. Rainbow Creek got home late and I was in the middle doing battle with a quilt I wanted to finish by this weekend. (That is another story for another time!) But I knew he was hungry and so was I since I had been down in the batcave all day working. I decided to offer to cook him some breaded chicken tenders and that was fine with him, but sounded pretty crappy to me. Then I remembered that I had some precooked angel hair pasta in the freezer so I threw together a big plate of chicken parmesan, it took about 15 minutes after the oven was heated and I was happy not to have a big mess to clean up.

I know you can buy those refrigerated pasta's that you just dunk in boiling water for a minute and they are really good. I used to buy those back in the day before I was being frugal. But they are really expensive. Now, when I make a meal with pasta I cook the whole package and it makes a lot more than we need, so I take the extra and drizzle a little olive oil over it and put it in a ziplock bag in the freezer. All you have to do when you need some pasta is heat some water to boiling in the microwave and pour it over the pasta in a large bowl. Take it out of the bag before you do this! It will defrost and heat through in a minute or so and you can hold it in the water til everything else is ready.

This chicken parmesan recipe is kid friendly and good for hardworking dads too. Add a salad and some garlic bread and you can do this meal in under 30 easily.

Cook frozen breaded chicken tenders according to package directions. Top with a little bottled spaghetti sauce and mozzerella and parmesan cheese, put back in oven for a few minutes to melt cheese. Serve with pasta and extra heated sauce.

If you don't like the breaded chicken you can use raw chicken breast tenders for this too, just bake about 10 minutes and cover with sauce and cheese.

Enjoy!