Eggplant Pasta Sauce

My eggplant pasta sauce recipe with chunks of fresh, soft, melt in your mouth buffalo mozzarella. Can't you just taste the rich flavor of the eggplant blended with the creaminess of the cheese and the sweet tomato sauce?

Hi, I’m Kira Volpi and this is one of the many traditional Italian pasta recipes that I’ve reach back in time to find just to please all of our palettes. Recipes like this have reached many a dining table for the last one thousand years. Much like most traditional pasta sauces, you need only to stick to the basics. Simple, fresh ingredients put together in a way that makes it taste delicious. It’s the Italian way!

Eggplant, also known as Melanzana is a member of the potato family. There's something else that is really interesting about eggplants. They come in both male and female. The female is intended to reproduce so they contain more seeds and tend to be more bitter, while the male eggplant contains less seeds and have a much nicer flavor. How do you tell the difference? The button on the bottom of the eggplant is either slitted or round. The slitted is the female and the round is the male.

With any of your vegetable pasta recipes make sure your veggies are fresh.

Also, the brand of buffalo mozzarella is hugely important. I've bought brands from some of the local grocery stores that have the texture and taste of a rubber band. Buffalo mozzarella is supposed to be creamy and soft as if to melt on your tough. I found this brand (A.B.C Mozzarella) in an Italian specialty store and although it was a little more expensive it made all the difference in the eggplant pasta sauce.

Eggplant Pasta Sauce Ingredients:

1. 1 lb of rotini pasta
2. 2 eggplants, diced into 1 inch pieces
3. vegetable oil for frying the eggplant
4. 2 cloves of garlic sliced thinly
5. 1 lb of good quality buffalo mozzarella
6. 2 cups of Marinara Sauce
7. Some fresh chopped Italian parsley
8. ½ cup of olive oil
9. parmigiano used liberally
10. salt and pepper

Eggplant Pasta Preparation:

I like to cook my pasta first and set it aside. Especially for a sauce like this where I want to add the pasta to the pan and then re-heat. It's a great way to melt the cheese into the sauce and the pasta. Yum!



Heat the vegetable oil in a large pan. When it's very hot, place the diced eggplant in and lower heat just a little so it doesn't burn. But you do want it fairly high. Eggplant is like a sponge when it first hits the pan. It will soak up all the olive oil and then when it begins to cook it squeezes right back out.

When the eggplant is golden brown and tender, remove from the pan and set the eggplant on a paper towel to absorb some of the extra oil. Discard any remaining oil in the pan and start fresh.



Now is a great time to begin cooking your pasta. Then drizzle a little olive oil into the pan again and sauté the sliced garlic until tender. Meanwhile, dice the soft and delicious buffalo mozzarella. When your pasta is cooked al dente add it to the pan with the garlic. Immediately add the marinara sauce, the fried eggplant and the mozzarella to the pan and toss or mix.



Heat the sauce and the pasta until the cheese is melted to a nice consistency. Sprinkle with the parsley and you've got an incredible eggplant pasta sauce ready to be devoured.

Vivere, Amare, Ridere e Mangiare Bene
Live, Love, Laugh and Eat Well!
Kira Volpi

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