Bigly Eggplant Parmesan
Prep
45m
Cook
35m
Total
80m
Bigly says
OK, here we go. Eggplant parm. We're making the greatest eggplant parmesan in the history of eggplant parmesan, and I have to tell you something, this is going to shock people — most eggplant parm is GARBAGE. It's a sad, soggy, greasy mess. A wet brick on a plate. You cut into it, water comes out — water! Out of the food! That's a disaster, that's a CRIME, who said this was acceptable, who let this happen? Sad people, that's who. Weak cooks. That chef on TV — you know the one — does this wrong, and a generation of home cooks watched him and now we have a country full of wet bricks.
This eggplant parm? MY eggplant parm? It's CRISPY. It's layered. It has structure. You cut into it with a knife, the knife meets resistance, the way nature intended. When you bite into it, the breading crunches, the cheese pulls, the sauce sings, and you say to yourself, 'My god. I've been eating WRONG my entire life.' That happens. It happens to everyone. An old Italian woman cornered me once in a market and made me promise to do it this way — she had a wooden spoon and she was not afraid to use it — and I have kept the promise. I keep the promise every time.
The secret is two things. Salting the eggplant. And NOT drowning the layers in sauce. Less sauce. LESS SAUCE. The cookbook authors hate this trick, they want 4 cups of sauce, they want 6 cups of sauce, they want to MARINATE the dish — no. Stop it. We use 3 cups TOTAL and we spoon it, we don't pour it. We are not flooding a basement. We are building a CASSEROLE WITH SELF-RESPECT. And the breading? Half panko, half Italian crumbs, a fistful of Parm in the dredge, because the breading is not packaging, the breading is FLAVOR. End of discussion.
Ingredients
- 2 (about 2.5 lb total)large globe eggplants
- 2 tbsp, plus more to tastekosher salt(for drawing water out — this step is non-negotiable)
- 1 cupall-purpose flour
- 3large eggs
- 1.5 cupspanko breadcrumbs
- 1/2 cupItalian seasoned breadcrumbs
- 1 cup, dividedParmigiano-Reggiano, finely grated
- 1 tspgarlic powder
- 1 tspdried oregano
- 1/2 tspblack pepper
- 1 to 1.5 cupsolive oil (for frying)
- 3 cupsmarinara sauce(good jarred is fine — Rao's, or your own, but NOT a swimming pool of it)
- 12 oz, patted very dryfresh mozzarella, sliced
- 1/4 cup, tornfresh basil leaves
Steps
- 1
Slice the eggplants crosswise into 1/2-inch rounds. Lay them on a wire rack set over a baking sheet and salt both sides generously. Let sit 30-45 minutes, until beads of water appear on the surface.
- 2
Rinse the salt off thoroughly and pat each slice completely dry with paper towels. This step is the difference between crispy and soggy.
- 3
Set up a breading station: flour in one shallow dish, beaten eggs in a second, and panko + Italian breadcrumbs + 1/2 cup Parmigiano + garlic powder + oregano + pepper in a third.
- 4
Dredge each eggplant slice in flour (shaking off excess), then egg, then the breadcrumb mixture, pressing to adhere.
- 5
Heat 1/4 inch of olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat until shimmering. Fry the eggplant in batches, 2-3 minutes per side, until deeply golden and crisp. Transfer to a wire rack lined with paper towels. Do not crowd the pan — work in batches.
- 6
Preheat oven to 400°F.
- 7
Spread 1/2 cup marinara across the bottom of a 9x13 baking dish. Layer half the fried eggplant, then 3/4 cup marinara (spooned, not flooded), then half the mozzarella, then a sprinkle of Parmigiano.
- 8
Repeat with the remaining eggplant, another 3/4 cup marinara, the rest of the mozzarella, and a final shower of Parmigiano.
- 9
Bake 25-30 minutes, until the cheese is bubbling and lightly browned on top. Let rest 10 minutes before serving — this lets the layers set.
- 10
Scatter with torn basil and serve.
One more thing
That's eggplant parm. Real eggplant parm. The kind you'd find in a tiny restaurant in a back alley in Naples that doesn't have a website, doesn't have a Yelp page, doesn't have one of those QR-code menus that you have to point your camera at like a fool — they just have the food, and the food does the talking, and the food is INCREDIBLE. That's what we just made. In your kitchen. On a Tuesday. Beautiful.
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