Eggplant Pomodoro Pasta
Did you know that I hated eggplant when I was younger? I hated the texture, the flavor and I couldn’t find a single dish with this weird, purple-looking vegetable that actually tasted good - until I tasted my Greek grandma’s eggplant pomodoro stew with potato and pieces of beef too. I have learned to love this vegetable and today I say that I understand people who don’t like eggplant, but it’s probably because they haven’t cooked it right. It’s so important to cook the eggplant thoroughly when cooking it so that it’s softs and completely melts in your mouth… and that’s exactly what the eggplant does in the recipe I’m going to show you all today.
My Eggplant Pomodoro Pasta is a simple dish with delicious flavors, herbs and ingredients known in the Mediterranean kitchen. I am inspired by grandma’s recipe but made it - this time - into a pasta dish instead. The sauce smells amazing and the soft and moist eggplant melts in your mouth but at the same time gives some extra texture and is nice to add to an otherwise rather plain tomato sauce. You just have to try this out!
This is also very suitable food to make an everyday when being busy and don’t want to spend too much time on making food in the evenings. Also suitable for both kids and adults to eat.
This recipe is not only for pasta…
This eggplant pomodoro sauce is so delicious and suits with spaghetti, linguine or fettuccine. However, you can serve it to other sides too! It’s so delicious to fry potato coins and serve it with them or serve with basket rice and tzatziki. This sauce has endless of side variation possibilities and it’s so so delicious. You better try it out!
Ps. It’s also nice to grate some parmesan-similar-kind-of-cheese to give the dish a bit of extra flavor and saltiness. That’s a tip!
Why do we add sugar to tomato recipes?
This is actually a kitchen hack I learned from my Greek grandma. She always put approx 1 tbsp of sugar into tomato recipes, based on canned tomatoes of various kinds. Why? Because canned tomatoes most often have a more sour tomato taste compared to “real” ripped tomatoes. So when adding just a little bit of sugar to one’s stew, tomato sauce, tomato soup or similar, it balances the flavor and makes it more delicious. If you haven’t tried this, I really recommend you to do so!
THIS RECIPE IS:
Vegan
Can be made gluten free
Nut Free
Simple to make
Great everyday food and perfect for food boxes
A more satisfying version of the traditional pasta pomodoro
Eggplant Pomodoro Pasta
INGREDIENTS:
approx 4 servings optional spaghetti, fettuccine or linguine
1 eggplant
Olive oil
Salt
1 yellow onion
2 pressed garlic cloves
600-800 g crushed tomatoes
1 bundle of finely chopped fresh basil
2 tbsp dried oregano
approx 0.5-1 tsp salt
Black pepper
possibly 1 tbsp sugar*
HOW TO MAKE:
Heat oven to 200 degrees C (390 F).
Boil the spaghetti according to the instructions on the package.
Cut the eggplant into 2 cm bites and place them in an oven pan. Ripple over some olive oil (approx 2 tbsp) and salt and combine everything together. Place in the oven for approx 20-30’, until ¨ soft (important). (You can also do this step by frying the eggplant in a frying pan instead, but when making it in a frying pan you’ll need a lot more olive oil because the eggplant absorbed a lot of the oil).
Meanwhile, heat up some olive oil in a skillet. Finely chop the onion and add that to the skillet with the garlic. Fry until soft.
Add the crushed tomatoes (add 800 g if wanting it more saucy) and all the spices including the sugar. Stir around and let it simmer for approx 10’.
Add the eggplant into the tomato sauce, combine and let simmer for another 5’.
When the spaghetti is done, either stir down the spaghetti into the tomato sauce or serve the spagetti and serve the tomato sauce on top. Finish with some more fresh basil.
NOTES: *
Read the middle part of the post to learn why we possibly add a little bit of sugar to tomato dishes.