Making lasagna with eggplant is so easy and unbelievably delicious. To be honest, two of our littles were not impressed with the seeds from the sheets of eggplant. If you have picky eaters, maybe dice up the eggplant before assembling your bake or remove the seeds. If you choose to remove the seeds you may need to increase the amount of eggplants you need to bake this lasagna.
There were many recipes that were read before I made this lasagna, and the one thing I would do different is to add no-boil pasta sheets. That would help to soak up some of the extra liquid that did come out of the eggplant that I was not prepared for. Had the lasagna had extra pasta, it would have been a brilliantly perfect lasagna without extra sauce.
Some recipes for lasagna call for using ricotta cheese, but I prefer to use cottage cheese. Personally, the texture is nicer and there is more flavor with cottage cheese. Depending on your preferences, you can opt to use ricotta or cottage cheese when making this recipe.
Eggplant Lasagna Recipe
Ingredients:
3 Eggplants
1 large container cottage cheese
1 egg
1 jar marinara
Parmesan cheese
3 garlic cloves
Oregano
Salt & Pepper
Directions:
1. Wash each eggplant and using a vegetable peeler, peel the skin off of the eggplants.
2. With a chef knife, slice the eggplant into 1/2 inch thick strips.
3. Place aluminum foil onto a baking sheet and spray with a non-stick spray and place eggplant slices on to bake. Sprinkle the tops with salt and pepper. Use Kosher salt as it tastes better with the eggplant; you can use table salt but cut the amount in half.
4. Set oven to 350 degrees and bake the eggplant slices for 10-15 minutes. This helps the moisture come out of the slices.
5. Spray a 9X13 lasagna pan with a non-stick spray.
6. In a large bowl mix together the cottage cheese, 1/2 cup shredded parmesan, 1 egg, 3 garlic cloves minced, 1 tsp oregano and salt and pepper to taste. Make sure you use freshly shredded parmesan as it will melt into the cottage cheese better than anything pre-shredded.
7. When the eggplant is done baking, carefully remove it from the oven and place the baking sheets on a hot pad.
8. Pour 1/3 jar marinara into the bottom of the bake dish to help the bottom not burn.
9. Place 6 eggplant pieces along the base of the dish. This will make up the bottom of your lasagna. You could also use a no-boil pasta here at the base instead of eggplant to add more substance to the bake; while also reducing the liquids that can come out of the eggplant.
10. Using a spoon, measure out a spoonful of cheese mixture onto each eggplant piece and spread it out evenly.
11. Layer more eggplant over the cheese mixture.
*You can substitute this layer with non- boil lasagna pasta if desired*
12. Pour more marinara over the eggplant and spread it out with a spoon.
Repeat steps #8-#12 to finish the lasagna bake. Any remaining sauce can be used for the top of the last eggplant layer before topping with shredded mozzarella. Whenever I cook, I use freshly shredded cheese as it melts best into any food. Pre-shredded cheese will not melt as well.
Eggplant Lasagna Layers:
*sauce
*eggplant
*cheese mixture
*eggplant
*sauce
*eggplant
*cheese mixture
*eggplant
*sauce
*mozzarella cheese
13. Top with 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese.
14. Bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour. This pan of lasagna specifically was done closer to 45 minutes; had it had no-boil pasta included it would have baked the full 1 hour.
Let rest for 10 minutes before cutting.
Enjoy!
~Monica
Some variations of eggplant lasagna I have read about use pasta as the main while cooking the eggplant into cubes with the sauce. The next time our family wants eggplant lasagna, I will make it with pasta and cut the seeds out of the pieces, then, cooking the sauce with the eggplant chunks.
I love to cook and try recipes in different ways because I can perfect recipes this way. Having a no-boil pasta would help to cut down on the amount of liquid that was still in the pan. It would also stretch the meal a lot longer as we had no leftovers. As we have six people, leftovers are the best thing ever.
I remember when Sam, who is now 12, was just a baby and Tyler and I had leftovers for days. Some recipes need to be tripled, like pancakes, for us to have enough. Do you or your family have this problem? Let me know!
Eggplant Lasagna Recipe
Ingredients:
3 Eggplants
1 container cottage cheese
1 egg
1 jar marinara
Parmesan cheese
3 garlic cloves
Oregano
Salt & Pepper
Directions:
1. Wash each eggplant and using a vegetable peeler, peel the skin off of the eggplants.
2. With a chef knife, slice the eggplant into 1/2 inch thick strips.
3. Place aluminum foil onto a baking sheet and spray with a non-stick spray.
4. Set oven to 350 degrees.
5. Place eggplant slices on baking sheet and sprinkle salt and pepper on the tops and bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes.
6. Spray a 9X13 lasagna pan with a non-stick spray.
7. In a large bowl mix together the cottage cheese, 1/2 cup shredded parmesan, 1 egg, 3 garlic cloves minced, 1 tsp oregano and salt and pepper to taste.
8. When the eggplant is done baking, carefully remove it from the oven and place the pans on a hot pad.
9. Pour 1/2 cup marinara into the bottom of the bake dish.
10. Place 6 eggplant pieces along the base of the dish.
11. Using a spoon, measure out a spoonful of cheese mixture onto each eggplant piece and spread it out evenly.
12. Layer more eggplant over the cheese mixture.
13. Pour more marinara over the eggplant and spread it out with a spoon.
Repeat steps #9-#13
14. Top with 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese.
15. Bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour.
Let rest for 10 minutes before cutting.
