Italian food is my comfort food and during the winter I crave it constantly. We made this recipe with the help of Christian’s grandpa via Zoom and we are obsessed at this point. Whenever we are craving that home cooked comforting meal, we recreate this recipe to the best of our abilities. The grandparents will always make it better than us, but we try our best!
Ingredients
- 2 eggplants, peeled and sliced into 1/2 inch rounds
- 2 jars of your favorite pasta sauce
- 1 onion, diced
- 4 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 2 eggs
- 1 1/2 cups flour
- 1 ball fresh mozzarella
- 15 oz container of ricotta cheese
How to make it
Servings: 6
Prep time: 30 minutes
Cook time: 45 minutes
- Preheat your oven to 350 F
- Heat up 2 TB olive oil in a medium saucepan over medium high heat
- Dice up the onion and mince the garlic
- Add the onion and garlic into the pan and cook for 2-3 minutes until they’re translucent and slightly cooked
- Add in your two jars of pasta sauce, reduce the heat to low and cover. Let it simmer while you get your eggplant prepared.
- Peel and slice your eggplant and place it on a plate lined with paper towels to absorb excess moisture
- Next, get your frying station ready. Beat the two eggs in a bowl and add the flour to a separate bowl.
- Heat a 1/2 inch worth of olive oil in a large sauté pan over medium high heat.
- Test whether the pan is hot enough by sprinkling in some flour and seeing if it sizzles.
- When the oil is hot enough for browning the eggplant, bread the eggplant. First, dip it in the egg, shaking off any excess. Then, coat it in flour, shake off any excess, and carefully place into the pan.
- Let the eggplant brown for about 2-3 minutes on each side and transfer to a paper towel lined plate. Repeat with the remaining eggplant slices.
- When the eggplant is all browned and ready to go, we can assemble the eggplant parm
- Start by ladeling enough sauce to cover the bottom of a 9X13 baking dish.
- Next, place one layer of eggplant on top of the sauce. Then place a spoonful of ricotta onto each slice of eggplant.
- Next, ladle sauce onto each stack of eggplant. Repeat this process until you run out of eggplant.
- When you get to the final layer, add on slices of your ball of fresh mozzarella.
- Cover the baking dish with aluminum foil and bake for 20 minutes.
- After 20 minutes, remove the aluminum foil and bake for 45 more minutes.
- After 45 minutes of total baking, you are ready to eat! Buon appetito!
