Aug 25

Aug 25 Eggplant Parmigiana + Italian Chicken

Beca Gibson

The other night when I through this recipe together, I was so excited to test out an eggplant parm dish. As soon as I put the sliced eggplant in the oven, I went to get my standard Rao's sauce out of the pantry...I was disappointed to say the least because I DIDN'T HAVE ANY! I franticly looked at all my options to try and concoct a marinara and went with it. I have never made homemade marinara just because Rao's is so dang good, and its easy. To be honest, I thought this was going to be the first bee.in.the.kitchen fail. Trust me - I will have a recipe fail and it will probably happen soon, but that is ok because this page is for real people.To my surprise, this dish turned out amazing, I will be making this again! Before we get to the details I wanted to share a few things that I learned with this new dish. The obvious is to embrace trying new things. This was one of the most rewarding recipes because the outcome wasn't for certain. The second revolves around the importance to use what you have. Marcus (my husband) often talks about how we have to much stuff, how we consume and sometimes waste so much. When I realized I didn't have my go to Rao's I could have got in the car and gone to the store, but instead I improvised and made a sauce with what I had. By doing that I not only saved $8 for the bottle of Rao's but also saved gas, time, and energy. Enjoy!

Ingredients

Eggplant

1 eggplant
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can tomato sauce
2 tbsp pesto
1/2 c sun-dried tomatoes
1/4 c red wine
1 tbsp Italian seasoning
Salt & pepper
GF bread crumbs (I didn't measure I just sprinkled a little bit on top of each eggplant round.

Italian Chicken

2 chicken breasts
1 tbsp Italian seasoning

Method

Eggplant

TIP*If you have time before you'd like to start cooking, I recommend cutting the eggplant into nice rounds (see picture above) place them on paper towels and sprinkle salt on each round. This process eliminates the bittery taste that eggplant can have. I did this for about 30 minutes and my eggplant didn't taste bitter at all. You can do it for several hours if desired. Anyways, once you are done with this process, rinse the salt off with cool water.

Step 1: Preheat the oven on 400

Step 2: Place the eggplant on a baking sheet and bake for 30 minutes, flipping the eggplant after 15 minutes.

Step 3: Add all of the sauce ingredients in a large saucepan. Cook on medium high heat for about ten minutes and then reduce to a simmer.

Step 4: Once the eggplant have cooked for 30 minutes, remove from oven and cover each round with the sauce and top with the breadcrumbs and parmesan cheese. Place them back in the oven and cook for 20 more minutes or until the cheese has melted.

Step 5: Enjoy!

Chicken

Pat the chicken dry, rub 1 tbsp of Italian seasoning all over. Cook in the oven for 25 minutes. Remove and add the chicken into the sauce (if you want it smothered with the sauce!) Simmer in the saucepan with sauce until the eggplant is done cooking. :)