I adore eggplants for many reasons. But, it’s not always easy to get my kids excited about eggplants. When I saw my friend Kayo who shared her Deconstructed Eggplant Parmesan on My Home Cooked Meals, I knew instantly that I could do a Japanese twist to the recipe that wins the kids’ hearts. Enter this Eggplant Parmesan Spaghetti.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
A delicious way to celebrate the mighty eggplant. The eggplant is coated with crispy panko and fried until golden brown, and when paired with the luxurious meat sauce in spaghetti, you get an extra hearty, succulent and satisfying result. It makes an elegant date night dinner, but also super family-friendly. My kids scarfed their plates down!
Japanese-style Meat Sauce vs. Bolognese Sauce
I used my favorite Japanese-style Meat Sauce in this pasta recipe. The main difference between the Japanese rendition and the classic Italian bolognese sauce is that we use both ground beef and pork to render a more robust flavor. Besides, the use of ground pork makes the sauce tender. We also tend to add more chopped vegetables like carrots, celery, and mushrooms into the sauce to create more body, umami, and texture. The rich, tomato-y sauce requires long-simmering and it’s a labor of love. To save time, I like to cook the meat sauce in advance and save a portion for this Eggplant Parmesan Pasta the next day.
3 Quick Tips for Making Delicious Eggplant Parmesan Spaghetti
1. Salt the eggplant
This extra step may sound tedious, but it’s 100% worth doing. Not only it helps to retain the color, but salting also helps prevent the eggplants from soaking up as much oil from frying. After salting, be sure to pat dry with paper towels.
2. Use Japanese Panko breadcrumbs
You can use regular western-style breadcrumbs, but panko would yield a much airy and crispy texture for the eggplant Parmesan.
3. Fry the eggplant
There are recipes that toast and bake the eggplant for eggplant Parmesan, but I like to keep to the classic preparation by frying the eggplant slices. You can only achieve the nice crispy crust and deep caramelized flavor by frying, and not baking. To minimize the greasiness, use a large frying pan/ skillet and a lesser amount of oil to shallow-fry instead of deep fry.
Itadakimasu!
Even though the meat sauce alone makes a delicious pasta, the pank0-crusted eggplant Parmesan takes an equal role in this recipe. Both are complimentary for making the pasta exceptional. My kids who don’t normally get excited about eggplants insisted on extra servings when I made this for dinner. I hope you too will enjoy the recipe! If you fancy, serve it with a glass of your favorite Riesling or red.
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