This paper studies the problem of optimal parallel tracking control for continuous-time general nonlinear systems. Unlike existing optimal state feedback control, the control input of the optimal parallel control is introduced into the feedback system. However, due to the introduction of control input into the feedback system, the optimal state feedback control methods can not be applied directly. To address this problem, an augmented system and an augmented performance index function are proposed firstly. Thus, the general nonlinear system is transformed into an affine nonlinear system. The difference between the optimal parallel control and the optimal state feedback control is analyzed theoretically. It is proven that the optimal parallel control with the augmented performance index function can be seen as the suboptimal state feedback control with the traditional performance index function. Moreover, an adaptive dynamic programming (ADP) technique is utilized to implement the optimal parallel tracking control using a critic neural network (NN) to approximate the value function online. The stability analysis of the closed-loop system is performed using the Lyapunov theory, and the tracking error and NN weights errors are uniformly ultimately bounded (UUB). Also, the optimal parallel controller guarantees the continuity of the control input under the circumstance that there are finite jump discontinuities in the reference signals. Finally, the effectiveness of the developed optimal parallel control method is verified in two cases.