Traditional Sicilian Eggplant Parmigiana, a traditional Sicilian dish known worldwide, releases an incredible aroma and wins everyone over, cheesy and creamy at the same time. In the recipe, you’ll find the family trick to make it perfect and even more flavorful.

To make traditional Sicilian eggplant parmigiana, you need only a few ingredients, all of excellent quality: good eggplants that must absolutely be FRIED, good quality mozzarella, Parmesan, lots of basil, preferably freshly picked, and a good sauce and basil. The grandmothers made it specifically starting from tomatoes and passing them through a food mill; a whole different story.

Sicilian eggplant parmigiana is an institution, a poem, which finds different variations depending on where it is made. In my area, for example, the traditional recipe that I propose today is enriched with hard-boiled egg, and some add slices of ham.

Today I propose the tastiest and simplest version, with my mom’s little secret, which makes the parmigiana even more delicious and perfect to slice.

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Difficulty: Medium
Cost: Medium
Rest time: 20 Minutes
Preparation time: 1 Hour
Portions: 8 people
Cooking methods: Oven
Cuisine: Italian
Seasonality: Spring, Summer

Ingredients

5 eggplants (I used round purple ones)
2 cups tomato sauce with basil
10.5 oz mozzarella
3.5 oz Parmesan
1 bunch basil
as needed olive oil
as needed salt
as needed pepper
1 egg

Steps

For your Traditional Sicilian Eggplant Parmigiana, the first thing you need to handle are the eggplants. My preferred variety is the light round purple ones as I find them sweeter and creamier, but any will do.
Usually, the skin is almost completely removed; I remove the parts that are not intact and perfectly smooth. Moreover, I find that removing at least part of the skin makes them more digestible, but you’re welcome to keep all the skin.
Wash the eggplants under running water, remove the ends, and cut them into slices about 0.4 inches thick.
Salt them to remove the dark vegetative liquid.
Place them in a colander in layers and for each layer, sprinkle with salt.
Let them rest for about an hour with a weight on top that slightly presses the eggplants and facilitates the loss of vegetative liquid.
After the waiting time, rinse under running water to remove excess salt and dry them with a cloth or kitchen paper towel. Then fry them in plenty of olive oil and put them back in a colander to let the excess oil settle.
Meanwhile, prepare the tomato sauce with basil, preferably fresh. But if you don’t have time or good tomatoes to make the sauce, use tomato puree. A simple sauce with garlic and onion sauté will suffice. Add plenty of basil leaves. Meanwhile, slice the mozzarella and let it drain in a colander.
When it’s ready, turn it off, and here’s my mom’s trick. When it cools down but is still slightly warm, add an egg, stir, and set aside. This will make your parmigiana sweeter, tastier, and help maintain its shape when you portion it.
You can finally focus on layering; layers can be 3 or 2, depending on the amount of ingredients you have and the size of the baking dish. In this case, I used a dish for six people and made 3 layers.
Place a layer of sauce at the bottom, then create a layer of eggplants, another of sauce, then mozzarella, tear abundant basil and generously sprinkle with Parmesan.
Create the second and third layer in the same way, alternating all the ingredients as before.
Finish the surface with mozzarella, Parmesan, and basil as usual.
Bake in a static oven on the center rack at 392°F (200°C) for about 40 minutes.
If you don’t make it, you can’t understand the aroma and joy in eating it, a Sicilian’s word!
Until next time, flavor of Arianna!