Meals · Skillet & sheet-pan mains

Cottage cheese chicken parm

Name: Cottage cheese chicken parm
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 50 min
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients: 4 breasts chicken breast, pounded to 1 cm (½ inch); 2 tsp olive oil; 3/4 tsp salt; 1 tsp black pepper; 1 tsp dried oregano; 3 cloves garlic, minced; 1 large head broccoli, in florets; 2/3 cup cottage cheese, blended smooth; 1 cup marinara sauce; 2/3 cup grated parmesan

Chicken parmesan with the breadcrumbs left out entirely: pounded chicken under whipped cottage cheese, tomato sauce and parmesan, baked over a tray of broccoli. You lose the crust — that is the real trade and there is no way around it — and you gain most of a plate.

Time: 50 min (20 prep + 30 cook)
Servings: 4
Per serving: 397 kcal
Protein: 49 g

Both directions are legitimate — the score measures fullness per calorie, not virtue. Every version is the same dish, rebalanced.

Ingredients

4 breasts chicken breast, pounded to 1 cm (½ inch)600 g
2 tsp olive oil10 g
3/4 tsp salt4 g
1 tsp black pepper2 g
1 tsp dried oregano2 g
3 cloves garlic, minced9 g

Underneath

1 large head broccoli, in florets700 g

On top

2/3 cup cottage cheese, blended smooth170 g
1 cup marinara sauce240 g
2/3 cup grated parmesan55 g

Every ingredient links to its food page — same data, same score, same formula.

Steps

Heat the oven to 200°C (400°F). Pound the breasts to an even 1 cm (½ inch) between two sheets of paper — this is not optional. Unbreaded chicken has nothing protecting it, so an uneven breast is dry at one end before the other is done.
Toss the broccoli with the oil, garlic, half the salt and the pepper and spread it over a large baking tray. Season the chicken with the rest.
Blend the cottage cheese completely smooth. Lay the chicken on the broccoli, spread the cottage cheese over each piece, then the tomato sauce, then the parmesan and oregano.
Bake 25–30 minutes until the chicken reads 74°C (165°F) and the top is blistered. Grill the last 2 minutes for colour.

It isn't crunchy.

No, and nothing here pretends otherwise — the crust is what you traded. What you get instead is a tray that feeds four without a second pan of pasta, and chicken that stays juicy because it was pounded thin and covered.

Broccoli rather than courgette?

Courgette sheds water into the sauce and you end up with a puddle unless you salt and drain it first. Broccoli roasts dry and forgives you.

Alternative

Chicken parmesanthe breaded classic49

Why this score

solidly filling

Protein plus low energy density — the two strongest fullness levers.

Three routes to fullness — one is enough

49% of kcal

76% water

15 g/Mcal

What pulls it down

Nothing here converges the way engineered food does — no sugar, no savoury and no alcohol penalty.

How scores work

Computed on the finished dish, not an average of the parts: 1589 kcal goes into the pot, 1792 g of ingredients comes out as ~1450 g of food → 110 kcal per 100 g. Cooking moves water, and energy density is the score's biggest lever — so we show the math. Full formula here.

Per

Calories: 110
Protein: (49%); 14 g
Fat: (30%); 4 g
Carbohydrates: (21%); 6 g
of which sugar: 2 g
Fiber: 2 g
Sodium: 322 mg

Percentages are the share of calories from each macronutrient.

Computed from the ingredients' USDA data — nothing typed by hand. Every number is traceable, every score recomputable.

More meals

Photo: AI-generated. Nutrition and score are computed from the ingredients with the published formula — this recipe hasn't been kitchen-tested by us yet.