Eggplant Parmesan

One of my favorite dishes!! I love my Italian heritage and love to keep it alive with good food and good people! This dish is definitely more time-consuming, but completely worth it. I love when either of my parents make this. It even makes for a great "alternative" Thanksgiving dinner main course! That's what I did my first year of college - Italian Thanksgiving ftw haha!

What You'll Need:

2-3 eggplants

Italian bread crumbs

Eggs

Milk

Spaghetti sauce

Mozzarella cheese

Mamma Mia!

Thinly slice the eggplants after cleaning them. Place them on cooling racks and lightly salt them because they need to sweat (This is the key!!!! If you don't do this step, they will not come out the same at all!) After one side is done sweating, pat it dry and flip them over to salt and sweat the other side. After a bit, mix egg and milk (about a 50/50 ratio between the two) in one bowl, and then pour the Italian bread crumbs in another bowl. You will then begin somewhat of an assembly line - dip the eggplant slices in the milk/egg mixture, then dip them into the bread crumbs (it will get messy - try to keep one hand for the egg/milk mixture and the other for the bread crumbs to try to reduce the mess!). When the eggplant slices are covered, put them in a pan with hot oil. Brown both sides (it won't take long, so watch it carefully because we don't want it to burn!) Drain the oil off and place 1 layer in bottom of pan. Put thin layer of spaghetti sauce (I love the four cheese one, but you can do whichever you like best) and cover with cheese. Repeat this several times like what you would do with lasagna. After you put cheese on top layer (I usually add parmesan as well to the top layer), sprinkle Italian seasonings over (I like oregano and sometimes basil or thyme. I know in the stores they also sell an Italian combo or something, and that works just as well). Put in the oven at 350. Cook until bubbly. This is quite easy to make, but definitely set aside like three hours if you plan on making this. Also plan on cooking extra eggplant cause it tastes fantastic just by itself and my family usually snacks on it while we make it :) enjoy!