The Recipe Ina Garten Has Made More Than Any Other

Who wouldn’t want to be a guest at Ina Garten’s table? If you joined her for breakfast, you might enjoy scrambled eggs with goat cheese cooked on the grill. During the holidays, perhaps she’d serve a perfectly roasted filet of beef. Before dinner, you could snack on her salted caramel nuts. Whatever she serves, there’s no doubt it will be delicious and made with top-quality ingredients.

There’s one dish that Ina has served to more guests than any other, she revealed in a cooking video. She calls it the dish for “mystery guests,” those whom she doesn’t know well enough to predict what they like to eat. It’s her safety dish, the one “everybody loves.”

The best part? It’s simple, affordable, and made with ingredients you likely already have on hand.

Ina’s Parmesan Chicken

Not to be confused with the classic Italian-American Chicken Parmesan, which features breaded chicken smothered in tomato sauce and melted mozzarella, Ina’s Parmesan Chicken is a lightly breaded chicken, pan-fried chicken dish topped with a fresh green salad.

Here’s how she makes it: Ina sets up a breading station with three bowls—one with seasoned flour, one with beaten eggs, and one with seasoned dry bread crumbs mixed with grated Parmesan cheese. She tenderizes boneless, skinless chicken breasts and coats each piece in flour, egg, and the breadcrumb mixture. Then, she pan-fries the chicken in a mix of butter and olive oil until golden and crisp.

As she cooks each batch, she keeps the pieces warm in an oven set to 200 degrees F (93 degrees C) until all the chicken is ready to serve. Just before serving, she tosses greens in olive oil and fresh lemon juice to create a simple salad. The crispy chicken is plated with the salad on top and finished with shavings of Parmesan cheese.

“The hot chicken and the cold salad is just a great combination,” Ina says. (For precise instructions, you can find the recipe on the Barefoot Contessa website.)

What to Serve with Ina’s Parmesan Chicken

What side would Ina serve with this simple main dish? On her website, she suggests pairing the dish with tomatoes and creamy Burrata. Roasted broccoli with Parmesan cheese or oven-roasted potatoes would also work well.

Few of us will ever be guests at Ina Garten’s table. But if we can’t, perhaps we can make her Parmesan Chicken for our own guests, making them feel just as welcomed around our table as the celebrity chef makes her guests feel around hers.