Five Ingredient Eggplant Parmesan Recipe

Melenzane Alla Parmigiana (Italian-Style Eggplant Parmesan)

In my youth, my relationship with eggplant parm was almost purely visual. It was the thing I conspicuously avoided if a friend’s parents served it at a playdate. I’d opt for the PB&J line if it was on the menu at the school cafeteria. I’d had some early, formative experiences with eggplant—that mushy, bland, slimy vegetable—to know to avoid it when I saw it.

No doubt that formative eggplant was poorly cooked. For when cooked properly, eggplant is silky, not mushy. It’s not bland, rather it’s a palate for soaking up other flavors (olive oil, coconut milk, or oyster sauce, to name a few). It’s not sli… well it can still be slimy. But slimy in a good way.

Of course, if I had opted to try the eggplant parm, it would have been of the Italian-American variety, made with breaded slices of fried eggplant layered in a heavy casserole with a rich tomato sauce and a blanket of melty low-moisture mozzarella cheese. If you’re interested in that type, you can find my recipe for All-American Eggplant Parmesan here. It’s excerpted almost directly from my first book, The Food Lab.

But times have changed, and while I will maintain to this day that poor cooking (and, let’s face it, poor choices made in naming) is responsible for the vast majority of hate that eggplant gets, when cooked properly, I love it in all its forms.

Despite my affection for the Italian-American variety, these days I find myself gravitating more and more towards the true Italian version. Melanzane alla parmigiana is a simply casserole made by layering slices of eggplant fried in olive oil with crushed tomatoes and mozzarella. Extra herbs and parmesan are optional (but I virtually always add some torn basil leaves and some pre- and post-oven-parm to the dish.

Often, dishes with a short ingredients list rely heavily on technique to draw the most out of them. Not so in this case. The basil and mozzarella require nothing more than tearing (if the mozzarella is of a very fresh and very moist variety, pressing it between some paper towels or allowing it to drain in a fine mesh strainer after tearing can help ensure the casserole doesn’t get watery). The tomatoes are as simple as any decent-quality canned whole peeled tomatoes crushed to a saucy consistency with a pinch of salt. The parmesan just needs to be grated.

The only part that presents any difficulty at all are the eggplant and the olive oil.

The Eggplant and the Olive Oil

Though the dish is simple, it does require a bit of time, mainly because eggplant has such a unique structure among vegetables. (Ok, ok, if you want to be pedantic about it, eggplant is a fruit.) It has an interior that is simultaneously spongy and light, but also overly moist. This ostensibly presents a problem when frying eggplant slices in olive oil, as the water prevents them from browning while the spongy texture absorbs too much oil.

There are a number of ways to deal with it.

The most common advice is to slice the eggplant, salt it, spread it in a single layer, and let it rest until moisture is drawn out through osmosis. As moisture leaves the eggplant, its interior structure begins to deflate, allowing you to press it down with a kitchen towel. This simultaneously absorbs the excess water and compresses the eggplant like it were memory foam.

True, these dryer, denser slices of eggplant fry more efficiently. But I find the process of salting eggplant to be tedious and lengthy, not to mention space-consuming. The time saved during frying is not enough of an incentive for me to salt and rest my eggplant.

In my All-American Eggplant Parmesan recipe, I call for microwaving slices of eggplant between plates lined with paper towels before pressing them to remove excess moisture. This is faster than salting-and-purging, which helps speed up a very involved recipe (breading and deep frying a casserole’s-worth of eggplant slices is no short order). But it’s still a time-sink.

My solution? Don’t do anything.

That’s right.

Just slice the eggplant and start frying it. Does it take a little bit longer to fry an individual slice when it’s fresh rather than purged? Sure. A little. But you save that time and more by not having to wait for the salt to draw out moisture (not to mention it takes far less space).

Do the eggplant slices absorb more olive oil? They sure seem to at the start; Add a quarter inch of oil to a skillet, add a layer of eggplant slices, and watch as they drink the oil all up until the pan looks dry.

But here’s the thing: as the eggplant slices continue to cook and collapse, that oil finds its way back out. Moreover, the oil that’s left in the eggplant slices is a feature, not a bug: As long as you’re using a decent quality olive oil, it will add layers of flavor and a silky, rich texture to the eggplant slices that is an essential element of the dish.

It may take anywhere from half an hour to an hour to assemble a full eggplant parm casserole this way (depending on how many servings you are making), but I find the workflow to be pleasant. The second batch of gently sizzling eggplant slices give me plenty of time to layer the first batch in a casserole dish (or cast iron skillet), top it with chunky tomato sauce and some torn basil, then tuck in a few tears of mozzarella. Once the second layer of eggplant finishes browning, I can repeat the process, adding more oil to the pan as necessary.

Though this is clearly a summer dish—eggplant, tomato, and basil are all summer staples—it’s real easy to find decent eggplants and basil in the supermarket year-round, and canned tomatoes always taste the same, so I see no reason not to make it any time of year.

Eggplant parm is one of those dishes that tastes simultaneously bright and light and fresh, but also rich and savory and rib-sticking.

Melanzane alla Parmigiana (Italian-Style Eggplant Parmesan)

Every recipe I publish here is personally tested, tasted, and approved.

What I like about this recipe:

• The ingredients for this recipe are very minimal, making shopping and planning simple.

• The recipe is very forgiving and adaptable. You can make as much or as little as you want.

• Cooking the eggplant in a large skillet and layering it as you go streamlines the kitchen process.

• Using plenty of olive oil delivers great flavor and a creamy, meaty texture.

YIELD: Serves 4

ACTIVE TIME: 45 minutes

TOTAL TIME: 1 1/2 hours

Notes: This recipe is designed for four people, but it would be extremely easy to scale up or scale down depending on your needs. I like the flavor of fresh mozzarella, but it can make the casserole very watery. To combat this, you can tear and press the cheese between layers of paper towel, or with your hands in a fine mesh strainer over the sink. Alternatively, you can use a low-moisture, aged mozzarella (AKA pizza cheese).

Ingredients 

About a cup (240ml) of Extra-Virgin olive oil

1 (28-ounces; 800g) can whole peeled tomatoes

Kosher salt

2 pounds (1kg) eggplant (about 2 Italian or 4 Japanese eggplants), sliced into 1/4-inch-thick rounds

3/4 pound fresh mozzarella (12 ounces; 340g; see note)

Fresh basil leaves

Grated parmesan cheese (optional)

Procedures
1. Adjust the rack to the lower-middle position and preheat oven to 400°F (200°C). Using a pastry cutter, knives, a hand-blender, or your bare hands, crush the whole peeled tomatoes with a big pinch of kosher salt until a chunky puree is formed.

2. Fill a large cast iron skillet with a layer of extra-virgin olive oil and heat it over medium heat until shimmering. Add some eggplant slices, and cook, swirling the pan or moving the eggplant slices around with a spatula occasionally. When the bottom of the eggplant slices are golden brown, flip the slices and continue to cook until the second side is golden brown.

3. As the eggplant slices finish cooking, transfer them to a casserole dish or a cast iron skillet big enough to hold three to four layers of eggplant, tomatoes, and cheese, laying them out in a single layer. Dollop the eggplant with tomatoes, using the back of a spoon to make sure the tomatoes have covered every exposed bit of eggplant. Dot with torn basil leaves and chunks of mozzarella (see note).

4. Repeat steps two and three until all layers of cheese and sauce have been added. Transfer to the oven and bake until the cheese is melted and starting to brown on top and everything is bubbly, about 30 minutes.

5. Remove from oven and add a layer of grated parmesan (optional), torn basil, and a drizzle of your best extra-virgin olive oil. Allow to cool 5 to 10 minutes before eating.