A creamy pasta sauce made almost entirely from an eggplant? Yes, you read that right. A delicious flavorful pasta sauce packed with veggies but super creamy and velvet-y. It has only 5 ingredients, it’s super easy and it’s ready in just 15 minutes so it’s a perfect weekday meal!
I love veggies, I love pasta. It’s just a matter of time before I try to make pasta sauce with every single veggie available!
This is one of my older recipes, one of the staples I often make when I don’t have much time or many ingredients available. It’s so easy to make and so surprisingly delicious that I bet it’ll become a favorite in your house too.
How to cook eggplant
Eggplant is a very versatile vegetable, or actually fruit to be more precise. Also known as Aubergine, come from the Solanaceae plant family and it’s rich of vitamins and minerals.
The most common way of cooking eggplant is by sautèeing in a skillet, better if then covered with tomato sauce like this Pasta with Eggplant and Mozzarella; or roasting in the oven. But this is not all, eggplant can also be steamed or boiled.
The flesh of the eggplant is quite spongy and is great at absorbing liquids so be careful with the amount of oil you use and if you choose to boil it, keep in mind that the result will be super mushy and only good if you blend it in a cream to make a sauce or a dip.
How to make eggplant less bitter
Some eggplants, especially if homegrown or from certain varieties, can be quite bitter.
One of the most common ways of treating it is by cutting it into thick slices, covering them with coarse salt and then pressing them in a colander with something heavy on top for about 1 hour.
The salt will help the eggplant release all the bitter liquids. Remove the salt before cooking and always taste before season it again.
Although I rarely use this method because I like the slight bitterness of eggplants and also because most varieties are not as bitter as you may think.
The Recipe
Creamy Eggplant Pasta
Ingredients
- 170 g (6 oz) dried Pasta
- 1 Eggplant
- 1 White or Yellow Onion minced
- 1 tbsp Milk or Cream
- Olive Oil
- Salt
- Black Pepper
- Parmigiano cheese grated
Instructions
- Peel and chop the eggplant in cubes. Boil it in slightly salted water for about 5 minutes or steam it for about 10 minutes. Remove the eggplant with a skimmer and don’t toss the water.
- Drizzle a pan with oil and sauté the minced onion for a minute. Add the drained eggplant and sauté for 2-3 minutes more.
- Meanwhile, add more salt to the boiling water and toss the pasta in. Cook according to the packaging instructions, until al dente.
- Transfer the eggplant and onion in a blender, season with salt and pepper and add the tablespoons of milk. Blend until you get a smooth cream. Add a few tablespoons of pasta water to make it thinner if needed.
- Drain the pasta and mix it with the creamy eggplant sauce. Serve with abundant grated Parmigiano cheese on top.
Did you make this?
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