I don’t know about you, but I am a big fan of eggplant parmesan. I tried it for the first time this past summer and absolutely fell in love at first bite. A few weeks ago while I was eating my Roasted Eggplant, Tomato, and Feta Cheese Stacks, I was inspired to create a lightened-up version of eggplant parmesan using the same roasting method that I used for the stacks. This lightened-up version of eggplant parmesan eliminates the egg, breading, and much of the cheese that is normally found in eggplant parmesan.
Lightened-Up Eggplant Parmesan
Servings: 1-2
Ingredients
EVOO cooking spray
1 eggplant, salted (refer to the stacks recipe above for directions) and cut into 8 half-inch rounds
2 Roma tomatoes, cut into 8 half-inch rounds
black pepper, to taste
salt, to taste
dried oregano, to taste
onion powder, to taste
garlic powder, to taste
dried basil, to taste
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 TB yellow onion, diced
8 TB pasta sauce of your choice
2 tsp grated parmesan cheese
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 415 degrees F. Spray a 9 x 13 baking dish with EVOO cooking spray.
2. Place eggplant pieces into the baking dish. Spray the eggplant pieces with EVOO cooking spray and sprinkle with seasonings (black pepper, salt, oregano, onion powder, garlic powder, basil). Roast for 20 minutes.
3. Remove the eggplant from the oven and flip. Spray each eggplant piece with EVOO cooking spray and sprinkle with seasonings. Place the tomatoes on a separate small baking sheet (sprayed with EVOO cooking spray), and spray and season them as you did the eggplant. Roast the eggplant and tomatoes for 20 minutes.
4. Remove the eggplant and tomatoes from the oven. Place one tomato slice onto each eggplant slice (you should have eight stacks). Sprinkle each stack with garlic and onions. Spoon 1 tablespoon of pasta sauce onto each stack. Stack four of the smaller stacks onto the remaining four larger stacks (you should have four total stacks, each with two eggplant slices and two tomato slices).
5. Sprinkle each stack with parmesan cheese.
6. Bake the stacks for an additional 5 minutes, or until the pasta sauce is warm and the cheese is melted.
The end result will be four Lightened-Up Eggplant Parmesan stacks.
You can serve two stacks as a side dish, or eat all four as a main course. I ate them all!! 🙂
These were really good! Obviously they do not taste exactly the same as eggplant parmesan, but for a lightened-up version they are quite tasty! I would definitely make these again.
