Eggplant Parmesan from the Freezer Recipe

Eggplant Parmesan

When I bread and fry eggplants I typically do a LOT and freeze in portions that suit us. Tonight I made some pretty quick eggplant parmesan using the last of my freezer stash of fried eggplant.  It’s hard to give measurements for the eggplant because I just sort of used up what I had left, probably 8-10 slices though of the larger eggplants.

Tomato Sauce

• 2 Tbs olive oil
• 1 large clove garlic, peeled and cut in half
• 2 15-oz cans of diced tomatoes
• a healthy sprinkle of dried basil because I had no fresh
• salt to taste, maybe 1 tsp
• a sprinkle of crushed red pepper

Heat the oil and cook the garlic for a minute or two. Add the tomatoes and juices from the cans. Watch out–it will likely spatter!  Add everything else, stir, and bring to a simmer. Simmer about 10-15 minutes, periodically crushing the tomatoes with the back of a wooden spoon.  Remove the garlic clove pieces at the end.

Eggplant Parmesan

• simple tomato sauce (above)
• 8-10 slices of fried eggplant (or roasted or grilled)
• 1 cup ricotta or mozzarella cheese
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat your oven to 400F. In a baking dish that will hold 3 layers or so of your eggplant, pour a bit of the sauce in and coat the bottom of the dish.  Layer 1/3 of your eggplant. Spread some sauce across the eggplant, sprinkle some Parmesan across, spoon 1/2 cup of ricotta across this or sprinkle grated mozzarella, then repeat another layer of eggplant, sauce, Parmesan, and the rest of the  ricotta.  End with eggplant, sauce, Parmesan.

Bake about 30 minutes, then remove from the oven and let it sit for 20-30 minutes so it will hold together when you slice it and serve.

I can’t wait for fresh eggplant but my frozen stash satisfied a craving tonight. It’s better fresh but then you need to add another 30-45 minutes of prep time too for frying up the eggplant.  This way it was a nice weeknight meal.

Served it with some artichokes I’d cooked yesterday and some mayonnaise and lemon juice mixed together, our traditional artichoke dipping sauce. My artichoke plants are not producing yet so the artichokes were store-bought.  I can’t actually remember whether these frozen eggplant slices were from my garden last summer or not.  I always grow some but usually not enough.

Note to self: Plant more eggplant.

I did add 4 more artichoke plants to the garden this spring but expect they will not produce until next year.

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