Eggless Eggplant Parmesan
Ingredients:
1 Eggplant
1 Cup Flour (White or Wheat)
2 Tablespoons of Olive Oil
(Additional Oil for Frying)
Italian Seasoning (Oregano, Parsley)
Marinara Sauce
1 Half Onion
2 Garlic Cloves
1 Half Jalapeno Pepper (Optional)
Parsley or Cilantro to Garnish
1 Bag of Pizza Cheese
Garlic Powder (or Garlic Salt)
Salt/Pepper to Taste
Paprika (optional)
Bread Crumbs (Regular or Seasoned)
Spaghetti Noodles
*Yes, this does have cheese so if you’re vegan or a vegetarian who doesn’t eat cheese, feel free to buy vegan cheese at a local store.
This classic Italian meal takes about 45 minutes total to make.
First, gather all your ingredients.
For the eggplant, slice ahead of time into 1/4 inch slices and place in bowl of water with a little bit of salt. This will keep them from browning and will soften them up a little.
First, we’ll be making the batter for the Eggplant slices. Put your cup of flour in a mixing bowl, followed by your garlic salt, italian seasonings, and paprika. Mix all dry ingredients together first.
Now, add in about 3/4 cup of warm water and about 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Mix this together.
Once you finish mixing all the ingredients together, the texture should resemble a thinner version of peanut butter.
Put some oil into a skillet and allow it to get hot. I usually turn my stove on high until the olive oil is hot, then I turn down the heat to more of a medium/high. Fry all these bad boys up and sit them aside.
Now onto the sauce! First, grab those veggies you want in your sauce (you can add different vegetables or eliminate the extra veggies all together if you’d like) and chop them up. The seeds in peppers are what makes the jalapenos and other peppers so hot, so remove those if you’d like. Then, I added mine to my food processor and chopped them up even more.
Take your favorite marinara sauce and dump it into a pan and add all those chopped vegetables! You can also add some garlic salt, italian seasonings, etc into the sauce (it’s all about your taste preferences) Go ahead and put this on the stove on low while you’re finishing up frying all of those eggplant slices.
The bread crumbs step is completely optional. I like using it because it adds a little more crunch to the meal. Mix all your dry ingredients together in a small bowl. Paprika, breadcrumbs, italian seasonings, and salt. Once mixed, set this aside
All of your eggplant slices should be fried and browned and ready for the next step!
Grab yourself a baking dish and spread just a little of the sauce along the bottom. Then place the eggplant directly ontop of it. (if you have more eggplant than room on the pan make another layer doing the same thing, that’s what I did).
The order for the layers starting from the bottom is sauce, eggplant, bread crumb mix, cheese, sauce. Like I said, if you need to make another layer ontop of that for the extra eggplant, go ahead and do so using the same order.
Now make sure that oven is pre-heated to 350 and toss the baking dish inside for about 10 minutes or so.
When the dish is ready, the cheese should be golden brown and fully melted.
Once the spaghetti noodles are done (make these while the eggplant is in the oven) pour the rest of the sauce into it and mix so all the noodles are covered in the sauce.
The final step is to place the spaghetti noodles onto the plate and put some of the eggplant (looks almost like lasagna at this point) onto the noodles. Sprinkle with a bit of parsley garnish and boom! All done.
This meal will give the Olive Garden a run for their money! It’s delicious, cheap, and easy to make!
Girl Gone Hippie 