Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Last Night's Dinner #66: A lighter eggplant parmesan



Sometimes I find that chicken and eggplant parmesan can be a little too heavy. Although as you can tell from my nightly eats - I really don't have an issue with heaviness, but today I wanted to try making a lighter version of this classic.

This version doesn't require cups of oil - everything is done in the oven. I simply brushed both sides of the eggplant (cut into 1/2 " rounds) with olive oil and baked it at 450F degrees (10 minutes each side).



I then dipped each piece in egg and covered both sides with some leftover panko crumbs I had from the last time I made Karen's No-Fry Fried Chicken. I baked them for an additional 15 minutes (turning halfway through) until nice and crisp.

Once the eggplants are done, all you have to do is layer 3 to 4 pieces with tomato sauce (store bought or make the best basic tomato sauce recipe in the world) and top it with a liberal slice of fresh mozzarella and grate a bit of parmesan cheese on top!



Put it back in the oven and bake for 8 minutes or so until the cheese melts. Put it in the broiler if you want to brown the cheese a bit. Enjoy!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mhhh, looks so yummy, I have to try them (-:

Marichelle said...

I made the mistake of cooking these ahead which made the breading (panko) not as crunchy by the time I served it. Also, if I had to do it again I would probably drizzle some olive oil along with the tomato sauce. It just needed a bit more fat, but overall I think it's a pretty good "light" version. Let me know how it goes!