Now you know how I used my Red Sauce, that I posted previously. :-) It’s very hard to resist the delicious, lip-smacking, cheesy Italian food. I have already posted two restaurant-style Italian recipes – Olive Garden Style Salad and Minestrone Soup. How to Make Eggless Eggplant parmigiana? Here comes the third – Eggplant parmigiana. Usually, the eggplant slices undergo an egg wash before getting dusted in flour. I was trying to replace that step and I tried a simple baked version (without pan frying) long ago but didn’t post it. When I was researching about Xanthan Gum in minimalist baker blog, I came across this vegan eggplant parmigiana. When I saw almond milk can be used as a replacement for egg wash, I was super elated and I had loads of almond milk after using it for my ice-cream. I also liked her idea of baking and shallow frying for extra crispiness. I tried the same and it came out super awesome. I didn’t make it vegan and also I didn’t use all purpose flour (APF) at all.
Alternatives and Baking Options: I love nice and brown eggplant slices. So I fried a couple of slices for a longer time to get that nice brown color and left some without browning but I made sure they were crisp enough. Both versions were really good. Just make sure you serve them hot. You can just bake the eggplant slices or deep fry them or shallow fry them or bake and shallow fry. Just try according to your time and preference. As the name suggests, we use Parmesan cheese. But you can use whatever is available and if you want to prepare this as a vegan, you can opt for the vegan cheese. Also, I used Panko Bread Crumbs here which is nothing but Japanese Style bread crumbs, which is prepared from no crusted bread. The texture is slightly different. But if you can’t find them, you can use regular breadcrumbs.
Eggless Eggplant Parmesan | Parmigiana Recipe:
Ingredients:
Eggplant – 1 Almond Milk – 1 cup Corn starch- 1 tsp Grated Parmesan Cheese – 1 cup or as required Panko Bread Crumbs – 1.5 cups + more Dried Oregano – 2 tsps Red sauce – as required. Oil – ¼ cup for shallow frying + for greasing Salt – 1 tsp Black Pepper Powder – 1 tsp
PrepWork:
Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Cook the spaghetti according to the package instructions and set aside.
Mix 1 tsp of cornstarch in 1 cup of almond and whisk it and make sure they are blended nicely.
Grate the cheese and set aside.
Mix Panko breadcrumbs, oregano, and pepper powder together.
Slice the eggplant into thin rounds and soak them in water by adding about 1 tsp of salt for 15 to 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, drain the water and pat them dry.
Take a baking tray and cover it with parchment paper or aluminum foil and grease it with oil. Now place them close by in your working area.
Steps:
Dip the eggplant slice on both sides in almond milk and dust it generously with panko crumbs. (If using APF, after dipping in almond milk, dust it with flour before panko. As I didn’t use APF, I used a generous amount of panko)
Now place these panko coated bread crumbs on the baking tray. Repeat the procedure for the other slices too. Sprinkle about 2 tsps of cheese on each of the slices and bake them for about 15 minutes. During the last 5 minutes of baking, heat the pan and add oil for shallow frying. As soon as you pull the eggplant outside the oven, pop those into the pan and shallow fry them on both sides till they are brown and crisp As soon you as you take them out of the pan, add more cheese on top.
Arranging:
This is how I served the eggplant parmigiana, I first added the spaghetti and then added a ladle full of red sauce on top. Then took 3 to 4 fried slices of eggplant and layered it on top.
Notes:
Instead of spaghetti, you can use pasta of your choice. There are Italian herb-flavored panko bread crumbs available. If you are using that, adjust the oregano accordingly. If you can’t find, panko, regular breadcrumbs are fine too. Homemade pasta sauce can be replaced with marinara or other flavored pasta sauces. You can skip shallow frying completely and bake for about 30 minutes. If you grease the baking tray generously, flipping the eggplant slices with cheese should be easy enough. (I have tried) Adjust the salt, pepper, and cheese according to your preference. Also, you can just serve this eggplant parmigiana with red sauce without any kinds of pasta.
📖 Recipe
