I love experimenting with recipes but I also enjoy reading other people’s recipes and trying to see if I can cook them on a budget. I stumbled on this recipe (www.cleangreensimple.com) for marinara sauce, which is just slightly different from one I usually cook so I decided to give it a try. It’s easy, cheap, healthy and doesn’t take very long to make. And it’s delicious. I had never made eggplant parmesan before and in fact, the last time I ate eggplant I didn’t like it. I can’t remember how it was prepared, I just remember thinking “yuck”. Well let me tell you, this is so yummy I ate one entire (small) pan of it myself! Seriously. I served this over angel hair pasta but you could eat it alone or with another type of pasta. You could always serve a small salad as a side and/or garlic bread to round out the meal. This is enough to serve 6 or 4 (very hungry) people. At our house, it was the perfect amount for 6. I did buy my eggplant on sale at Albertsons, where it was on sale for $1.00 each.
EGGPLANT PARMESAN –
Prep Time: 12 minutes
Cook Time: 45 minutes
Serves: 4-6 for approx $7.79
Ingredients:
- 1 (about 1 1/2 lb) eggplant
- 1 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
- 2 cups (8 ounces) shredded mozzarella cheese
- Marinara Sauce* recipe below
Directions:
Peel eggplant, if desired, and cut eggplant into 1/4-inch-thick slices. Layer half of eggplant, half of Parmesan cheese, 3/4 cup mozzarella, and half of marinara sauce in a lightly greased baking dish. Repeat layers. Cover and bake at 375 degrees for 40 minutes or until eggplant is tender. Uncover, top with remaining 1/2 cup mozzarella cheese, and bake 5 more minutes or until cheese melts.
*In our cooking video I TOTALLY forgot the last step! But it was still delicious….but now I’m wishing I had remembered to add that last layer of cheese!
EASY MARINARA SAUCE* –
Of course you can always use any abundance of home-grown tomatoes if you want instead of canned. You can also substitute fresh herbs instead of dried but this tastes excellent just as it is and still very fresh. I think dried herbs give sauces a “smokier” flavor and that’s one reason I love this. (And if you’re a “regular” on our site, you know I do like my fresh herbs so to sub dried…that’s saying something!) This is an easy recipe to pull together too since you probably have most of these ingredients already in your cabinet.
Ingredients:
- 1 28 oz can crushed tomatoes
- 1 15 oz can diced tomatoes
- 1 tsp dried parsley
- 1 tsp dried basil
- 1 tsp dried oregano
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- 1/2 tsp onion powder
- pinch of red pepper flakes
- pinch of black pepper
Directions:
Combine all the ingredients in a large sauce pan and heat to boil. Reduce, cover, and simmer for 20 minutes (up to an hour), stirring occasionally.
This sounds so good.