Eggplant Parmesan Pasta Recipe (2024)

Frying eggplant on the stove absorbs too much olive oil. Lidia Bastianich salts the cubed eggplant and lets it drain. It's the only way to get the bitterness. Once it is dried on paper towels, she tosses it with far less olive oil and roasts it in the oven. The eggplant that emerges is less oily, doesn't break down as fast as on top of the stove, and has a lovely flavor with the pasta and cheese. A little more work, but a big payoff in terms of texture and taste.

add a healthy amount of anchovy paste (I like Cento best)thank me later

Kept looking at the recipe to see if I was missing something as tasted bland even toward the end. Could do with more of most everything except tomato and eggplant. More onion, garlic, oregano, and bunch of salt next time.

I'd recommend making the pasta and sauce as listed (be sure to add plenty of salt to eggplant mixture), but don't cook the breadcrumbs in oil. Put the eggplant/pasta mix in baking pan, put breadcrumbs, parm, and mozzarella on top and bake. Otherwise, this was bland, and the oiled breadcrumbs did not taste good.

I roast eggplant (diced) with salt and olive oil in the oven at 425 for about 15 to 20 minutes instead of pan frying until tender (so it isn't oily or mushy.) Adding diced red bell pepper and zucchini would add flavor. I would skip frying the panko as well as suggested below.

I frequently make something like this, but include zucchini and bell pepper along with the eggplant, and some red wine, and call it "ratatouille". Also works well with goat cheese instead of the fresh mozzarella. It's important to make sure the eggplant is really soft before you start adding in other ingredients, especially the tomatoes. Otherwise the eggplant will never cook properly and will be bitter. This is a great vegetarian substitute for traditional Bolognese pasta sauce.

I have made a variation of this for years. To give it more punch, I add anchovies (or paste) to the olive oil, and I throw in Kalamata olives and some capers toward the end. It is one of our favorite pasta dishes.

Almost every week I roast separate pans of eggplant, tomatoes (usually cherry unless it’s the height of the season) plus zucchini and various sweet peppers. I season each separately-sometimes Italianish often Middle eastern (baharat or ras al hanut). Roasting cuts way down on the amount of oil. Later I throw it all into a pot on the stove and simmer till the flavors meld. I use it for whatever I come up with for dinner-chicken or pasta, parm or feta, hot spices or warm. Makes great shakshuka.

I give up- what is CRP??

I agree with GregB that it isn't necessary to use so much oil in cooking the eggplant. I used the Cook's Illustrated method of par-cooking the cubes (see https://www.cooksillustrated.com/articles/1810-10-unexpected-ways-to-use-your-microwave. ) After this, proceed with cooking in much less oil. The eggplant will not turn to mush. Also, the suggestions about adding more flavoring (anchovy, garlic, oregano, etc.) is good, unless using a well seasoned homemade tomato sauce.

I made some tweaks: sweated the cubed eggplant with salt and dried them with paper towel, then mixed the cubes in a bowl with some drizzled olive oil, Italian spices, and Italian bread crumbs. Baked on oven pan at 400 degrees, turning once, until nicely done. Then put in an oven dish and mixed in al-dente pasta, tomato sauce from a jar and grated mozzarella cheese, sprinkling grated parmesan on top. Baked the casserole before putting it under the broiler. Voila. Delicious.

Add a little sherry vinegar and red wine to the sauce. More garlic than called for.

This is a variation of Pasta Alla Norma

Someone on this site suggested recently that the microwave is useful with eggplant, and may cut way down on oil or butter. I’ve been zapping eggplant, sliced or however, for recipes where I’m not sure that baking or sautéing will cook it enough. Or when my time-planning is inadequate!

How about roasting the eggplant so there's not so much oil? Anybody try that? If you bake it as a casserole is the oil step necessary?

Thickened nicely like a ratatouille. Skipped serving over pasta, instead had it with a gf take on Melissa Clarke’s meatballs.

Delish! I took the suggestion to sweat the eggplant, but also just ended up sauteeing it without the whole paper towel thing. Reduced oil with the breadcrumbs and they toasted up beautifully. I did not add all the water suggested. I swished out the tomato paste can and added about 1/4 cup total. And I only added another 1/4 c from the pasta water. I think that kept the flavor high. Add red pepper flakes for pizzazz at the finish. Yum!

It’s an easy dish to prepare, full of flavour, though it’s a bit pricy when it comes to add two different top end cheese, but the outcome was simply amazing, worth cooking this delicious pasta meal. Thank you.

It took way longer than 8 minutes to cook the eggplant to a good texture, but it was worth it, it was delicious. I omitted the panko and just added parmesan at the end.

Cubed eggplant; placed in colander; sprinkled with salt and let drain to release any bitterness. Added anchovies as suggested and more garlic. Delicious.

A few modifications:Cubed eggplant, salted and drained, then tossed in a little olive oil and roasted it in the air fryer rather than frying in oil.Left out the panko.And instead of pasta, I subbed in a pound of white beans, soaked and cooked. Could use canned but I prefer to cook my own. More protein in this version!

Made this with one big modification: instead of a pound of pasta, I used a pound of cooked white beans. I also omitted the panko because I didn't think those were really needed, and increased the mozzarella. Salted and drained the eggplant cubes, then roasted them in the air fryer for 20 minutes before adding them to the tomato sauce. Baked the bean/eggplant/tomato mixture with mozzarella and Parmesan. Oh my is this good...

Just finished cleaning up after eating this dish. Good not great. A couple things: panko, really? It added unnecessary crunch and not much else. Also, make sure you use a lot of salt and pepper. Please make sure you let is sit for a few after putting it all together and skip the panko.

I didn’t have Panko and i wasn’t sure i wanted it anyway, so skipped that part. Used ricotta instead of ricotta salada, making it creamy. Needed lots of salt though. Ray suggested adding sausage…hmm.

Took forever from start to finish and was just fine: nothing like eggplant Parmesan - just a fine pasta with fine sauce

Really disappointing. Barely edible.

It was a bit bland. More guidance on salt and adding dried peppers might have helped.

Hallelujah!!! Tasty and weeknight friendly. I had a medium size eggplant and tossed in a couple zucchini to round it out and use up those csa veggies. After cooking those down really well (and yes, it took more than two tbs of oil) I threw in a couple cups worth of homemade leftover sauce I had in the freezer…straight from frozen right into the pan. While that got friendly with the veggies, I started the pasta. I grated the mozzarella to facilitate distribution. Everyone loved this.

I loved this dish and my partner liked it very much--he has a thing against rigatoni but I persuaded him to try this with it because we had mezze on hand for a different experiment. It took longer than 35 minutes but not less than an hour from start to sit-down; it is a great week night dish that partner will eat again with penne. (?!) The crunchy panko-cheese mixture was excellent. We made a bigger batch--about 2 pounds of eggplant, scaling up everything else too. It will serve 6 portions.

First time I have ever disliked a nytimes recipe. Activity disliked. Followed to the letter. Bland, not enough tomatoes for the amount of pasta. Will stick with Melissa Clarke recipes in future. Always winners.