I am a huge fan of of roasted vegetables and like everyone else, when I can, I go low carb. Even my pasta was low carb tonight and I limited it to one cup. I had an abundance of this beautiful light purple eggplant and tonight I was going to use it. I didn’t want the heaviness of it being fried nor the extra breading, so I thought “Why can’t I do this roasted?”. Well, lucky for me, I can because I am the only one eating this tonight! Yes the other spoiled people in my family opted for chicken Parmesan so I had to make two dinners tonight. Not something I do often but I knew mine was so easy I didn’t mind. I loved the fresh flavors of this with the fresh basil and tomato sauce.  Ok, let’s get into this as I am tempted at the moment to go get more!

You will need(serves 4 easily):

• 3 small eggplant
• 6 cups of marinara sauce or 2 jars
• 1 box of angel hair pasta(I love Dreamfields)
• salt
• olive oil
• 1 cup of fresh chopped basil
• 1 small garlic clove minced
• 2 cups of mozzarella cheese or 1 lb deli sliced
• 5 slices of provolone cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Take a 9×11 pan and sauce the bottom with about a cup of sauce. Set aside.

About an hour ahead of time, slice and lay out all your eggplant slices onto paper towels. The slices should be about 1/2 an inch thick. Sprinkle with a TINY amount of salt on one side of the eggplant slices and this will draw the liquid out.

Dice your basil and garlic and add together in a small bowl.

Once it looks like your eggplant is sweating, pat them dry with a paper towel and lay onto a lightly oiled baking sheet. We are going to roast the eggplant in the oven for 10 minutes. You will need two pans.

While these are baking you can start your pasta water. Add a pinch of salt and let the water boil. Add pasta and cook until tender.

After 10min, take each pan out and flip the eggplants as well as rotate the pans. Now put your oven on Broil LOW and watch them. You want them to crisp up some. This will give a wonderful texture to the dish.

When the pasta is done, drain and put right back into the pot. Add one jar of pasta sauce, stir and cover, letting the sauce seep into the noodles. No need to be on any heat. Set aside. Once your eggplant has gotten a nice golden color, take it out of the oven and you can begin to layer this dish. Set the oven back to 350 degrees.

Get the sauced pan. Add a layer of the eggplant.

Then add cheese, I chose provolone first.

Add the diced basil and garlic lightly then a drizzling of sauce all across the pan.

Add a second layer of eggplant, more cheese and basil mixture.

I added shredded mozzarella on this layer.

You do this until you run out of eggplant, making your last layer cheese.

Place into oven at 350 degrees for about 15 min until cheese is bubbly and delicious looking!

Serve with a side of simple sauced spaghetti, topped with fresh basil.  Yum!! I loved the roasted eggplant and I truthfully did not miss the breadcrumbs at all. I have never had it this way before but I assure you this is my new go to recipe. I hope you enjoy it too!