Recipe: Eggplant and Quinoa Parmesan

If you're like me, you've probably had (and loved) any kinda of chicken parmesan. If you're also like me, you have probably never, or seldom, had eggplant parmesan. Well, yesterday I was able to score a nice pile of fresh picked farm eggplants for about $4.00 - a total steal - and knew I wanted to make eggplant parm.

The next question was, how did I want to do it? I wanted something different and healthy. Pasta just wasn't going to cut it this time. So I turned to my tried and true favorite - quinoa. I have never had quinoa with marinara sauce before, but after tonight it's safe to say I will be eating it this way a lot more often.

Eggplant - Quinoa Parmesan

Ingredients:

1 cup quinoa, cooked with garlic and basil (for cooking directions, this is my tried and true favorite tutorial).

2 small (or 1 large) eggplant, sliced and dried. (once again, see this tutorial on how to dry your eggplant)

1 - 1.5 cups of breadcrumbs (I actually made my own!)

1 large egg

1/2 - 1 cup milk 

1/2 standard jar of your favorite marinara sauce

1 package of shredded mozzarella cheese

Desired seasonings - basil, oregano, rosemary, thyme, garlic, etc

To cook eggplant:

1)Preheat oven to 425

2) Mix your egg and milk together in a small bowl. Have another bowl prepared with the breadcrumbs

3) Get a cookie sheet and spray/rub with olive oil

4) Dip your eggplant slices in the egg/milk then breadcrumbs then place on pan.

5)Once all eggplant is dipped, place in oven and bake 10-15 min (until crispy)

6) Take out of oven, do your best to turn over the slices and bake for another 5 min.

To prepare the dish:

1) Prepare your qunioa and eggplant. To save time, you can actually do these at the same time.

2) Once eggplant and qunioa are ready, begin preparing the casserole. Lower oven temp to 375. 

3) In a rectangular pan, spray with oil and then add a thin layer of marinara. Season the marinara if desired. 

4) Now layer in your quinoa. Don't expect it to layer perfectly - odds are the quinoa and sauce will end up mixing together. That's ok :) 

5) Place cooked eggplant on top, in a single layer if possible. 

6) Pour more sauce on top, as much as desired. 

7) Cover the pan and cook for 10-15 min, or until hot all the way through.

8) Remove from oven and sprinkle with cheese and more seasonings. Place back in oven and cook uncovered for 5 more minutes, or until the cheese is melted.

9) Remove from oven, let stand for a bit and then serve. It's best with steamed veggies, like broccoli or asparagus.  

Normally I'd give the nutritional info, but this one is a bit harder with all it's components. Just take my word that it tasted amazing!

I think the thing I like the most about this dish is that, although I used a few tutorials to make the components, I came up with the idea from complete scratch. And it turned out so amazing. I definitely am glad I took the time to dry out my eggplant, that helped it so much.  I bet this would be amazing with parmesan cheese added also, or layered like lasagna, or if the eggplant was mixed with the quinoa. Man, the possibilities are endless here!

What a fun experiment. I can't wait to do more. 

~Lisa