You know you’re onto a good recipe when you make it 3 times in a fortnight. This has been a huge hit as of late, my eggplant parmigiana is the ultimate comfort food.
Scrumptious layers of tomato & aubergine with a creamy, crunchy cheese topping. What more could you ask for?
Ingredients:
- 2 medium sized eggplants
- Extra virgin olive oil
- 1x red onion
- Salt and Pepper
- 2 garlic cloves
- 600grams good quality basil tomato sugo
- 2 tablespoons tomato paste
- Dried Italian herbs or a mix of dried oregano and thyme
- ½ cup Panko bread crumbs
- 250 grams grated mozzarella cheese
- 100 grams parmesan
Method:
- Wash eggplant and cut into round disks (about .5cm thin)
- Next lay the eggplant rounds out on a large tea towel on your kitchen bench. Sprinkle each round generously with salt. Allow them to sit on your kitchen bench for 20-30 minutes. Eggplant naturally contains a lot of water, so you should start to see water droplets form that have been drawn out. This step is extremely important as you want the eggplant to dehydrate so the finished product isn’t watery.
- Remove the water and salt by dabbing the eggplant with kitchen roll. Next flip the eggplant over and carry out the same process on the other side.
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
- Whilst you are waiting for the droplets to form on the other side. You can make the delicious tomato sauce.
- Place the olive oil in a pan over medium heat. Sauté the red onions and garlic for roughly 5 minutes. Next add in the tomato paste, herbs and the tomato Sugo. Allow the sauce to simmer on a low heat for 20 minutes. Season the sauce however be careful not to over salt it as the eggplant will still contain a lot of salt in the final product.
- Once both sides of the eggplant are ready, make sure to brush off any excess salt and place in a large baking tray in a single layer. Cook for 15 minutes.
- Remove the eggplant from the oven and start to layer the eggplant and sauce in alternating layers in you baking dish.
- I like to add a small layer of mozzarella cheese to the middle layer too, for some extra flavour however this is optional.
- Once you reach the final tomato sauce layer, spread the panko breadcrumbs over the dish before you add a generous layer of both cheeses to the top! The panko crumbs will give the dish the perfect crunchy texture.
- Place in the oven for 30 minutes or until the top is golden brown!
- Enjoy whilst still warm.
