Italian Pasta with Eggplant, Bell Pepper and Tomatoes
This amazing yet simple pasta with eggplant, whose recipe I decided to write down, is interesting because it’s really a recipe for several dishes at once.
Pasta, as we know, is just dried dough. Dough of all kinds of shapes, boiled in salted water.
On its own, pasta tastes of dough, nothing more. The flavor of the finished dish is determined by the sauce the pasta is served with.
The simplest sauces, which require no special skills, are tomato and vegetable ones. For example, you can make a simple seasonal dish – eggplant in tomato sauce – and serve it with boiled pasta. The ingredients are somewhat similar to eggplant with tomatoes.
I read somewhere that thick sauces, or sauces with large pieces, are made for simple-shaped pasta so that the pasta can hold the sauce on its surface. For shaped pasta the sauce can be thinner, like Bolognese sauce or amatriciana sauce. At home, our most popular pasta is penne (Italian penne). It’s a short pasta shaped like small tubes cut at an angle.
If you read carefully about the history of world cuisines, you notice there are very few unique vegetable dishes that are unlike any others. For example, there’s a whole string of vegetable dishes that, depending on the ingredients and the cooking method, differ in look and taste but are essentially related. I’m talking about vegetable caviar.
Vegetable caviar is considered a cold dish, an appetizer, with all the components chopped up – eggplant caviar. The ingredients vary widely: vegetables (eggplant, zucchini, beets, carrots and nearly everything that grows in the garden), mushrooms, fruit. If the dish is hot and the vegetables aren’t chopped, it’s already a sauté or vegetable stew, like green caviar.
In Hungarian cuisine, the well-known dish lecho is stewed sliced vegetables. Lecho works as a dish on its own, as a side dish and as an appetizer. It can be served both hot and cold. An even larger cut and a special cooking method are typical of the Provençal ratatouille with eggplant.
Thick, hot vegetable stews go very well with Italian pasta, even bell pepper lecho. A vegetable stew of eggplant in a sweet and sour sauce can be a great addition. Eggplant in sauce can be an eggplant appetizer if served separately, or it can be a main course (or the only dish, since it’s filling on its own). If you combine pasta with a vegetable sauté of eggplant (onion, tomatoes, bell pepper), you get a great hearty dish – pasta with eggplant, bell pepper and tomatoes.
Pasta with eggplant and tomatoes is a very tasty dish that many people will surely like. It’s also filling and easy to make.
Ingredients
2 servings
- For the sauce
- Eggplant (medium, young) 1
- Ripe tomatoes 3–5
- Red bell pepper 1
- Onion 1
- Garlic 2 cloves
- Olive oil 3–4 tbsp
- Sugar 0.5 tsp
(2 g) - Dried aromatic herbs (basil, dill, oregano, thyme) 1–2 pinches
- Salt, ground black pepper to taste
- For the pasta
- Pasta (penne) 150 g
- Water for cooking the pasta 2–2.5 l
- Salt for the pasta water 7 g per 1 l of water
- Basil a leaf for garnish
Step-by-step recipe
Preparing the vegetables
Pasta with eggplant won’t give you any trouble, even though eggplants, tasty as they are, come with a surprise. They can be bitter. Usually, if you know the varieties, you can tell in advance whether an eggplant will be bitter.
Slice the eggplant. If the seeds have formed and there are a lot of them, it’s best to remove them. If there are only a few seeds, you can leave them.
If you don’t have the experience, sprinkle the sliced eggplant with salt and leave it for 20–30 minutes, then rinse and squeeze it out a little. This treatment gets rid of the bitterness. You can also soak the sliced eggplant in salted water. It’s up to you – maybe it’s worth doing, just to be safe.
Scald the medium ripe tomatoes with boiling water, then remove the seeds and skin.
Cut the flesh into medium-sized pieces.
The pepper can be roasted or used raw. Peel and cut the pepper the same way as the tomatoes.
Peel the onion and dice it. I’ve always wondered how to dice an onion so the cubes don’t fall apart. I still haven’t solved it. Just cut the onion at 5–7 mm intervals. That’s enough.
Vegetable sauce
Heat 3–4 tbsp of your best olive oil in a sauté pan. Fry the chopped onion in the oil.
As soon as the onion starts to brown, add the chopped pepper and simmer everything covered over medium heat for 10 minutes. The pepper should soften a little.
Add the chopped eggplant. Keep frying everything over medium heat for 4–5 minutes, stirring from time to time. By the way, eggplant soaks up oil very well, so this is a rather high-calorie dish.
Add the chopped tomato and garlic.
Add salt, but not too much, since the eggplant already contains a little salt. Salt to taste and carefully. It’s better to add more salt and pepper later, at the very end.
Add all the spices, including 0.5 tsp of sugar (2 g) and 1–2 pinches of dried aromatic herbs: basil, dill, oregano, thyme and so on.
Simmer the vegetable stew covered over low heat for about 20 minutes. If there’s a lot of liquid in the eggplant and tomato sauce, you can cook it off by removing the lid from the sauté pan and turning up the heat.
Pasta and serving
While the eggplant in tomato sauce is cooking, heat 2–2.5 l of water in a large pot and salt it at the rate of 7 g of salt per liter of water.
Cook the penne. The cooking time is given on the package.
Drain the cooked pasta in a colander and let the water run off.
Mix the cooked pasta with the vegetable sauce. Let it stand covered for 1–2 mins.
Put the pasta with the sauce on plates and garnish with a basil leaf.
Pasta with eggplant, bell pepper and tomatoes is a very tasty dish that many people will surely like. It’s also easy to make, and it’s satisfying.
Calories and macros
620 kcal
Serving ≈ 600 g
- Protein15 g10% of kcal
- Fat26 g40% of kcal
- Carbs73 g50% of kcal
100 g103 kcalProtein 2.5 gFat 4.4 gCarbs 12.2 g
Calculated from the recipe ingredients, excluding salt and spices. Data: USDA and Matvaretabellen.
To Get It Right
Which eggplant to choose
A young, medium-sized one: it has few seeds and is less often bitter. If the seeds have already formed and there are a lot of them, remove them.
Water and salt for the pasta
For 150 g of pasta, use 2–2.5 l of water and 7 g of salt per liter. Cook the pasta for as long as the package says and drain it in a colander right away.
Which pasta to choose
At home we most often use penne. For simple-shaped pasta, thick sauces with large pieces are made – the pasta holds them on its surface. For shaped pasta the sauce can be thinner, like Bolognese sauce or amatriciana sauce.
Oil
Use the best olive oil, 3–4 tbsp. Eggplant soaks up oil well, so don’t pour in more – the dish is already quite high in calories.
Similar eggplant dishes
- Eggplant with tomatoes – similar in ingredients.
- Ratatouille with eggplant – a larger cut and a special cooking method.
- Bell pepper lecho – can also be served with pasta.
Have your own trick for this recipe?
Pull chopper for garlic and onionAliExpress
Oil sprayerAliExpress
Kitchen scale up to 5 kgAliExpress
Vegetable chopper with handleAliExpress
Measuring cups and spoonsAliExpress
Peeler with wooden handleAliExpressQuestions and answers
What is pasta with eggplant called in Italy?
The best known is the Sicilian pasta alla Norma: with fried eggplant, tomato sauce, basil and grated salted ricotta. In our recipe the eggplant is stewed with pepper, onion and tomatoes, which gives a vegetable sauté.
Can you make spaghetti with eggplant and tomatoes?
Yes, the sauce goes well with spaghetti too. Cook it in the same salted water, and make the sauce thicker so it clings to the pasta.
When do you add the garlic?
Together with the chopped tomatoes, after the eggplant has fried for 4–5 minutes. Use 2 cloves per serving.
Can you sprinkle pasta with eggplant with cheese?
Yes: sprinkle grated Parmesan or another hard cheese right on the plate, just before serving.
Can you serve eggplant sauce without pasta?
Yes. Eggplant in tomato sauce can be served on its own as an appetizer or as a main course – it’s filling by itself.