Roasted Eggplant Parmesan

A lightened up, weeknight friendly take on an Italian American classic.

Hello friends, and a very happy Rosh Hashanah to those who celebrate!

I had actually planned on publishing this recipe for Roasted Eggplant Parmesan several weeks ago, but wasn’t totally happy with the end result, so you got these very yummy cookies instead. Since the eggplant at my farmer’s market looked particularly perfect last weekend, I decided to give it another go, and I’m so glad I did. This Roasted Eggplant Parmesan recipe takes away all the annoying/unappealing parts of the classic recipe, but still retains all of the flavor and has big “comfort food” factor, making it a fall dinner that I’ll definitely be putting in my regular rotation.

I remember watching my Italian grandmother prepare eggplant parmesan for our large extended family when I was young; she’d painstakingly salt all of the slices to reduce their bitterness, then go through the time-consuming and messy process of breading and frying everything, and finally layer it all together with homemade sauce and sliced mozzarella cheese. Yes, the end result was outrageously delicious, but it was all just so much work, even to my 8 year old mind.

It turns out, salting eggplant isn’t entirely necessary (though it does have some benefits if you’re frying the eggplant, so Grandma’s efforts were not entirely in vain). Since I was roasting the eggplant, I skipped this step. In order to lighten up the recipe and make it more weeknight friendly, I decided to not individually bread each eggplant slice, and instead create a “parmesan”/panko topping to use in between layers, which simultaneously adds cheesy, savory flavor and some texture. I use homemade marinara sauce here, because it’s simple and really adds a solid backbone of flavor, but if you’re looking to really speed things up, you can absolutely swap in a jar of good quality store-bought sauce (I like Rao’s).

This roasted eggplant parmesan is sort of casserole-like in appearance, but can be cut and stacked on a plate on its own, piled on top of a semolina roll and served as a sandwich, or served alongside some simply prepared pasta and sautéed greens (my preferred way). I hope you love it as much as I do - let me know what you think in the comments!