This Baked Eggplant Parmesan is so easy you can make it on a weeknight! Simply slice, coat, and bake…dinner will be ready before you know it. 

THE INGREDIENTS: 

Eggplant: Can’t have eggplant parmesan without eggplant! We use 1 eggplant in this recipe and have found that it serves plenty. We’re talking about a normally sized eggplant here, nothing too small nor too large. If you end up with one of those crazy-extra-jumbo eggplants, we recommend using some of it for this recipe and reserving the rest for another eggplant dish. If eggplant isn’t your thing, you can make this recipe with chicken instead for a nice chicken parmesan. 

Flour: Before you coat your eggplant in that sticky egg wash, you’ll need to add some flour! Why, you ask? Well, it’s to help the egg wash stick better to the eggplant. Eggplant is already kind of moist, so adding flour gives more of a dry surface for the egg wash to stick to. We personally use all purpose flour, but we can definitely see whole wheat flour working just fine if you have some to use up. This amount of flour should make it so you have none to a little left over, which is a lot better than overdoing it and throwing out your extra flour, eggs, and breadcrumbs! 

Egg: Without something sticky on the eggplant, the breadcrumbs wouldn’t stick! An egg is our answer here. Just 1 egg should get the job done, so there’s no need to crack two. 

Water: This is a family trick that’s probably more well known than a secret, but we’ll reiterate it here anyway. To save yourself the money and from wasting most of that second egg, you can get the coating work of two eggs by combining 1 egg with a bit of water. Be careful to not add too much water, though, or else the breadcrumbs won’t stick as well. We like to do 1/4 cup. 

Breadcrumbs: A crunchy breadcrumb coating is just about as important in eggplant parmesan as the parmesan itself! Although we use plain breadcrumbs, italian-seasoned breadcrumbs or even panko work just fine here. For extra cheese flavor, you could even mix some parmesan into the breadcrumbs. Just follow your heart, but remember it should be more of a breadcrumb mixture than a parmesan mixture. This amount of breadcrumbs should make it so you have none to a little left over, which is a lot better than overdoing it and throwing out your extra flour, eggs, and breadcrumbs! 

Tomato Sauce: We told you this meal was weeknight friendly, didn’t we? Well, pre-made tomato sauce is our key to success here. We like to use jarred, garden vegetable style tomato sauce. You can also just use regular canned plain tomato sauce. Simply add a bit of italian seasoning, garlic powder, onion powder, black pepper, and salt to perk it up. 

Shredded Italian Blend Cheese: We haven’t heard of a cheese-less eggplant parmesan before! We’re definitely not trying to be the first one. We prefer using italian blend shredded cheese so that we have multiple kinds of cheese and all of our cheese is uniformly shredded. Feel free to replace this with shredded mozzarella cheese and add any form of parmesan, from shredded to powdered, on top. Just use what you have! 

Spaghetti: Chances are you’re eating more than just the eggplant with sauce for dinner. To use up the extra sauce and give an incredibly easy side, we like to boil up some spaghetti. Still, it doesn’t have to be spaghetti. You can use about any kind of pasta you have on hand here!

Salt: A little bit of salt goes a long way towards making a meal taste delicious. To make sure this eggplant parmesan doesn’t seem like it’s missing something, don’t miss the salt! Adjust to your own tastes. 

Italian Seasoning: Without being spiced up, baked eggplant parmesan can be a bit lackluster. Italian seasoning is a mixture of different herbs and spices, such as basil and oregano, that add their strong, delicious flavor to this eggplant parmesan. As a bonus, these flavors taste great when paired with a tomato sauce! We do not recommend decreasing the amount of italian seasoning in this recipe-it’s where a lot of the flavor comes from. 

Onion Powder: If we were going all-out from scratch, you can guess we’d have a nice tomato sauce with some cooked onion and garlic. Since this is not one of those “everything from scratch” kind of meals (although you totally can use your own sauce and make breadcrumbs from your own bread, we won’t stop you), cooked onion is successfully replaced by fragrant onion powder. Again, we do not recommend reducing this spice as you would be missing out on some flavor. 

Black Pepper: Ok, ok, still a bit more flavor please. Black pepper adds a small zing to this dish without being overpowering in the slightest. With that being said, everyone has different black pepper tolerances. So, decrease or increase as desired. 

Garlic Powder: This is the kind of meal that calls for garlic, and we wanted to deliver! We think we have the garlic just right, so we wouldn’t decrease it or else you could be missing out on some major flavor. 

Oil: Just because this meal is baked doesn’t mean it has to be oil-free! Although not necessary, oil helps with crispiness and browning. Simply add any neutral oil or olive oil to the sheet pan and you’re good to go. You don’t want the eggplant parmesan to be swimming, though, so don’t go too heavy handed! Just a nice liberal coating will do. 

KEY INFORMATION: 

Why Bake With Aluminum Foil Instead of Parchment Paper? Aluminum foil and parchment paper are made out of two different materials. Depending on the material you select, there are different properties. Aluminum foil is more conductive than parchment paper. What this means is that the heat goes through this material easier. Aluminum foil heats up faster and reaches higher temperatures in the time that our meal cooks compared to parchment paper. A hotter surface=crispier eggplant parmesan! Still, it gives our favorite benefit-the pan is so much easier to clean when you can just throw out what the eggplant parmesan baked on. 

What Goes With Baked Eggplant Parmesan? Although we like to have it served with spaghetti, that’s not all you can do with eggplant parmesan! First, let’s focus on some lighter sides. Side salads (lettuce or caprese), roasted broccoli and/or cauliflower, as well as vegetables sauteed with oil or butter, garlic, salt, and some red pepper flakes are sure to be a hit.

Now, let’s focus on protein! We’ve made this many times with a few pieces of chicken parmesan to go with the eggplant. However, why not turn your attention to cheese? Double down on breading and serve this meal with breaded mozzarella sticks. To focus on caprese salad again, it has light tomatoes and wonderful wedges of cheese. Otherwise, make a nice charcuterie plate that has cheese, maybe some meats, nuts, crostini, bruschetta, roasted garlic, herbed olive oil, and olives. A cute mini charcuterie platter adds protein and makes this meal more than just 1 course!

Finally, what about more carbs? Some garlic bread, breadsticks, or replacing the spaghetti with another kind of pasta, even homemade gnocchi, should do the trick. At the end of such a nice meal, we like chocolate. So, why not have some chocolate almond thumbprints for something sweet after the meal?