Eat Fit Not Fat- Ooey Gooey Baked Mozzarella Sticks

My #1 vice in the food world has to be cheese. Fresh salsa is a very, very close second.  But ooey gooey melted cheese is hands down  instant happiness in and around my mouth! So for this week's installment of Eat Fit Not Fat, with some inspiration from skinnytaste.com, I decided to turn the beloved fried mozzarella stick into a  healthy appe-teaser! (Eater Discretion is advised, these are pretty darn good!)

The Setup

 

You will need Panko bread crumbs, Italian bread crumbs, dried parsley, 12 string cheese sticks (cut in half), flour, 1 egg, parmesan cheese, tomato sauce for dipping and olive oil spray or mist.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

cut sticks

Cut 12 cheese sticks in half to make 24 equal sized pieces. (I used Sargento brand). Place in freezer while assembling the other ingredients.

ingrediants

Place 2-3 tablespoons of flour on plate. Mix together 5 tbsp of Italian Bread Crumbs, 5 tablespoons of panko bread crumbs, 1 tbsp of dried parsley and 2 tsp of parmesan cheese in a separate bowl. Whisk 1 egg together in a second bowl.

Line a cookie sheet or plate with wax or parchment paper. Coat mozzarella sticks with flour. Dip and coat each mozzarella stick with egg mixture. Then transfer mozzarella stick to panko/breadcrumb mixture and coat and stick with breading. Repeat process for all 24 mozzarella sticks.

flour

Next place plate of breaded mozzarella sticks back into the  freezer for approx. 15-20 minutes. This important step that you don't want to skip, otherwise the cheese will melt prematurely before the breading turns golden brown.

 

Take mozzarella sticks out of freezer. Transfer to a cookie sheet lined with aluminum foil. Spray cookie sheet with olive oil mist. Place your cold mozzarella sticks onto cookie sheet. Then spray a light mist of olive oil on top of cheese sticks before popping into the oven. I used this hand dandy gadget to spray olive oil on top of my cheese sticks. photo (7)

Bake in oven for approx. 3-4 minutes. Flip sticks over and then bake for an additional 3-4 minutes until golden brown and ooey gooey.

finished

Serve with your favorite marinara sauce. Enjoy!

Calorie Break Down

Eat Fit Not Fat - Ooey Gooey Mozzarella Sticks: 43.4 calories/2.4 g of fat per stick

Applebee's Mozzarella Sticks (9 sticks) - 930 calories, 48 g of fat = 104 calories/ 5 g of fat per stick

Arby's Mozzarella Sticks (4 in a serving) 412 calories/21.8 g of fat= 103 calories 5.2 g of fat per stick

Recipe adapted from http://www.skinnytaste.com/2012/02/skinny-baked-mozzarella-sticks.html

Ingredients:

  • 12 sticks part-skim, reduced sodium mozzarella string cheese (Sargento)
  • 1 large egg, beaten ( I had to use 2 eggs to coat the last couple of sticks)
  • 2-3 tbsp flour
  • 5 tbsp Italian seasoned breadcrumbs
  • 5 tbsp panko crumbs
  • 2 tsp parmesan cheese
  • 1 tbsp dried parsley
  • olive oil cooking spray (I used Pam Olive Oil to coat cookie sheet and then used an olive oil mister to coat the top of the mozzarella sticks)

Makes 12 servings