Five thumbs up! Definitely a keeper for our family!
It’s funny how things happen.
A couple of months ago Don mentioned to me that he’d seen a cooking show that featured a dish we never have had before but that he thought we’d like: Eggplant Rollatini.
I had never heard of it but from the way he described it, it certainly sounded good.
And then literally within the next day or so I received my next issue of All You magazine. I love that magazine because of all the recipes and all of the coupons.
Wouldn’t you know it, one of the featured recipes was for Eggplant Rollatini?! Crazy, right?
I ripped it out and placed it on our kitchen cabinet, the catch-all place for me to stick recipes. Well, one of many catch-all places I stick recipes.
Jump ahead through December and all of our fat-free recipe research, past the holidays and I’d totally forgotten about Eggplant Rollatini.
Last week I took a closer look at the recipe and realized that it would fit in perfectly with our newly overhauled menu plan. Turns out, Eggplant Rollatini is super healthy and very easy to make nonfat.
This past weekend we tried it out. Now when I say “we” I really mean Don. He cooked it.
His first impression was that the recipe was very labor-intensive, which is not really tops on my list for a keeper recipe. His words were something to the effect of, “This better be good, it was a lot of work.”
It was DELICIOUS. If you like Eggplant Parmesan and you like Lasagna, this was a combination of the two. It was wonderful and Don declared that it was well-worth all of the work that went into it. He said he’d definitely make it again. All five of us gave this a thumbs up.
Therefore, I thought I’d share the recipe from All You with you today. It makes a good Sunday afternoon meal (which is when we had it) when you have the time to make something more labor intensive, definitely not a 30 minutes to the table type of dinner for a week night though.
The recipe lists the prep time as 45 minutes, standing time 15 minutes and cooking time as 45 minutes, so you can see what he meant when he said it was a lot of work.
Well worth it though, I promise.
The finished product!
EGGPLANT ROLLATINI
INGREDIENTS
4 medium eggplants
salt and pepper
1/4 cup olive oil
one 10 ounce box frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
3 cups part skim ricotta (ours is non-fat)
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 large eggs beaten (Don only used one, but they were extra large eggs)
1 1/2 cups shredded part skim mozzarella (we used non- fat)
3/4 cup grated Parmesan
one 24 ounce jar of marinara sauce (also fat free)
DIRECTIONS
1 Slice ends off eggplants (Don peeled ours also). Cut eggplants lengthwise into 1/4 inch thick slices, discarding the ends. You should get roughly 16 slices, total. Lay slices on a rimmed baking sheet and sprinkle both sides liberally with salt. Let stand for 15 minutes, then rinse salt off under cold running water and pat slices dry.
2 Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Brush both side of eggplant slices with olive oil and place in single layers on two baking sheets. Roast for 15 minutes until tender, turning eggplant slices over halfway through. Let cool on sheets on wire racks until cool enough to handle.
3 In large bowl, combine spinach, ricotta, garlic, eggs, 1/2 cup mozzarella and 1/2 cup Parmesan. Season with 1 tsp. salt and 1/2 tsp. pepper. Mist a 9×13 baking dish with cooking spray. Spread 1/2 cup of sauce over the bottom of dish. Divide ricotta mixture among eggplant slices, using about 1/3 cup for each, spreading it down the center. Roll up slices and place seam-side down in baking dish. Top with remaining sauce and sprinkle with remaining mozzarella and Parmesan.
4 Cover baking dish with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Remove foil and bake until browned and bubbling, about 15 minutes longer. Let cool for 10 minutes until serving.
The Whole bag of Chips 
🙂 hi!hi! I can imagine your husband in the kitchen asking himself why he started this long recipe in the first place, but hey! look like you said: it was worth it !!! 🙂 We have never tried this and I know my hub would love this because he loves lasagna (I’m not kidding, he loves preparing lasagna at least 2 times a month) 🙂 I will keep your recipe for a Sunday afternoon too! (once things will calm down here) 🙂 Happy Wednesday!!! 🙂
I was thinking it didn’t seem to be a ton more work than lasagna, but then I wasn’t the one doing the work, so I really can’t say much! Let me know how you like it when you try it!