# Roasted Eggplant Pasta

Posted by sandra Dinner Recipes December 22, 2020 23:01 119 views

This eggplant pasta is flavor-packed with roasted eggplant & zesty marinara sauce! An impressive plant based dinner, it works for weeknights or parties.

Meet your new favorite dinner recipe. Yes, this eggplant pasta has got it all! It’s packed with savory and zesty flavor: tender roasted eggplant, zesty marinara sauce, and peppery basil. It’s 100% plant-based, but lacking nothing in the flavor department. Even better, this Mediterranean-style dinner is incredibly versatile: it works for weeknights and for serving to company! (Like your favorite jeans that work for going out or staying in, right?) There’s something about it that’s cozy but elegant at the same time. Curl up with your honey and make it on an evening in…or serve it on a big platter as a family dinner!

## First, you’ll make roasted eggplant.

The first time we made this roasted eggplant, I took one bite and shouted “Wow!” (We love recipes like that.) I expected it to be good, but not that good. Roasting eggplant breaks it down into silky, savory tender goodness. Even with no flavoring, it tasted incredible. We dressed it up with a little grated garlic and chopped basil to take it over the top. You can serve this as a side dish, but it was so good we had to make it into this eggplant pasta. Here’s how to make Roasted Eggplant:

- Chop: Cut 2 eggplants into 1-inch diced pieces.
- Mix with olive oil and salt: Mix with 1/4 cup olive oil and 3/4 teaspoon salt. Eggplant soaks up the oil in an instant, so mix it right as soon as the oil hits its flesh.
- Roast at 425 degrees: Roast for about 30 to 35 minutes until the eggplant is browned and tender. Because eggplant has so much water, it will deflate quite a bit. The roasted pieces come out much smaller!

You absolutely must cook the pasta for this eggplant pasta to al dente. A lot of home cooks mess this up, resulting in limp pasta. What’s al dente? In Italian it means “to the bite.” It refers to pasta that is still firm on the inside when cooked. The ideal al dente texture is a tender exterior balanced by a firm bite with a fleck of white at its core. Here are our tips on how to cook pasta to al dente:

- Boil the pasta in a large pot of salted boiling water.
- While cooking, check pasta continually for doneness.
- As soon as the pasta has a tender exterior but a fleck of white at its core, drain it! Even a few seconds can be the difference between al dente and limp noodles.

### INGREDIENTS

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For the roasted eggplant

- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 2 medium to large eggplants (about 2 pounds)
- 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/4 teaspoon grated garlic
- 1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil or Italian parsley
- Freshly ground pepper

For the pasta

- 1 recipe Easy Marinara Sauce
- 3 tablespoons capers, drained
- 1 pound long pasta noodles: spaghetti, fettuccine, linguine (gluten-free as desired)*
- Fresh basil, to garnish (leftover from the marinara recipe)

### INSTRUCTIONS

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Roast the eggplant: Cut the eggplant into 1-inch chunks. Quickly mix with olive oil and kosher salt and fresh ground pepper (the eggplant soaks up the oil in an instant, so mix as soon as you add it). Place it on a parchment lined baking sheet. Roast for 30 to 35 minutes, until browned and very tender, gently stirring the sheet at about the 25 minute mark.
3. Make the marinara sauce: Meanwhile, make the Easy Marinara Sauce. Let it simmer covered until the eggplant is done.
4. Make the pasta: Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Boil the pasta until it is al dente (start tasting a few minutes before the package recommends: you want it to be tender but still a little firm on the inside). Then drain the pasta and return it to the pot.
5. Season the eggplant: When the eggplant is done, remove it from the oven and gently toss with the garlic and herbs, making sure to spread out any chunks of garlic that stick together. The eggplant will be very tender so handle it gently.
6. Serve: Add the drained capers to the marinara sauce. Pour the sauce over the pasta and mix to combine. To serve, add noodles to a plate, then top with roasted eggplant and finely chopped basil. (If you’d like, you can add cheese: but it’s not necessary for flavor!)

### NOTES

*Here we used a fancy long pasta called mafaldine we found at our local grocery. You also can use any short pasta shape: it’s just as good!

You can read full article and recipes here :https://www.acouplecooks.com/roasted-eggplant-pasta/

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