Thinking and thinking, recipe after recipe, all used ground meat to stuff the Oven-Baked Eggplant Cutlet but I got tired of ground meat. The usual and classic filling for any recipe. So I thought, what other filling can I offer my readers? And here I am today with the solution that convinced me the most! Holy Sausage! I enriched it with tiny diced carrot pieces, you can also use the pre-chopped carrot found in the frozen section of the supermarket to speed up the preparation even more.
After deciding the filling for the Breaded Eggplant Sandwiches, I turned on the oven. A few simple steps and off to cook. Yesterday, I posted in the Instagram Profile stories (if you don’t follow me yet, you can do it by clicking here) the preview photo of the photo set with a cat under the table and a glass of Tredico in hand. I prepared only four eggplant cutlets with sausage but you can obviously double or triple the quantities.
Before moving to the eggplant cordon bleu recipe, as some have named this recipe, I’ll leave you some clickable links to discover other eggplant recipes or zucchini recipes that are in season at this time. Maybe you can save a few bucks and enjoy seasonal ingredients, respecting nature’s cycles.
I also remind you that you can become a follower of the Facebook fan page of Le Ricette di Bea where every morning you will find the Recipe of the Day and many other live contents from my kitchen. You can click FOLLOW by clicking here!
- Difficulty: Very easy
- Cost: Cheap
- Preparation time: 10 Minutes
- Portions: 2 people
- Cooking methods: Oven
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: Spring, Summer
- Energy 218.65 (Kcal)
- Carbohydrates 27.63 (g) of which sugars 8.93 (g)
- Proteins 8.66 (g)
- Fat 9.08 (g) of which saturated 0.45 (g)of which unsaturated 0.83 (g)
- Fibers 7.33 (g)
- Sodium 626.49 (mg)
Indicative values for a portion of 250 g processed in an automated way starting from the nutritional information available on the CREA* and FoodData Central** databases. It is not food and / or nutritional advice.
* CREATES Food and Nutrition Research Center: https://www.crea.gov.it/alimenti-e-nutrizione https://www.alimentinutrizione.it ** U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, 2019. https://fdc.nal.usda.gov
Ingredients
- 1 round eggplant
- 1 sausage
- Half carrot
- to taste breadcrumbs
- to taste extra virgin olive oil
- 1 pinch salt
- 1 pinch black pepper
- 2 leaves basil
- to taste parsley
Tools
- 1 Cutting Board
- 1 Knife
- 1 Baking Tray
- 1 Oven
- Parchment Paper
- 1 Plate
- 1 Small Bowl
Steps
To prepare the meat eggplant sandwiches, we need to start by slicing the eggplant or eggplants into rounds. In my case, a nice, long, and large eggplant. So let’s take a wooden cutting board and a non-serrated knife and slice the eggplant. I made 8 rounds of the same height and diameter. This way, we can facilitate and optimize their oven cooking. Soak the eggplants in a bowl of cold water and leave them there. Turn on the oven in static mode and set it to 356 degrees Fahrenheit.
Now take half a carrot, cut it into very small cubes or, if you prefer, take the pre-chopped frozen carrot. You’ll find it in the supermarket fridge. Crumble the sausage into a small bowl and add the carrot cubes and parsley. If you don’t want to do this step with your hands, you can use a fork. If you replace the sausage with ground meat, still follow this step, adding the carrot will give more flavor to our dish. You can also choose to add celery, always cut into small cubes.
Let’s get back to the eggplants. Drain them from the water and proceed as follows. Do not pat them dry; we need them moist because we won’t be doing any breading with egg. Spread four of the rounds with the sausage and place the other rounds on top, applying slight pressure. Pour some breadcrumbs onto a small plate and add: salt, pepper, parsley, extra virgin olive oil. Mix with a teaspoon. We can proceed, bread the eggplant rounds thoroughly on both sides. Now place the eggplant discs on a baking tray lined with a sheet of parchment paper. Drizzle with extra virgin olive oil and bake for about 30 minutes. After the first 15 minutes, flip the breaded eggplant cutlets to perfect the cooking on both sides.
You can serve the eggplant cutlet with sausage either hot or cold, perfect to take for lunch at the office or under the beach umbrella (if the summer decides to arrive!). I just remind you that I look forward to seeing you on the blog with many other easy and delicious recipes like this one, and I wish you bon appétit!!!
Paired with the eggplant cordon bleu with sausage, I chose the Tredico from Castrum Morisci, an Orange wine, the latest novelty from the winery. What a spectacle of color and aromas! If you pass through the Marche region, specifically Moresco, stop by the winery, David, and Luca together with their family, will delight you with their amphora wines. If you’re curious to discover their reality, you can do so by reading the Taste Experience that I have recounted in this article: Castrum Morisci Winery a family story!
Storing the Eggplant Cutlet:
You can store the oven-baked eggplant cutlets in a refrigerator or freezer container, once they have completely cooled. In the fridge for up to two days, in the freezer for up to twenty days.
Variations:
You can choose to add cheese to the meat or sausage filling, even mozzarella if you like, to make the filling of these oven-baked eggplant sandwiches even creamier and stringy. There is also the version with egg breading. Just crack the egg, beat it with a fork, dip the already stuffed eggplant discs in it. Then pass them in the breadcrumbs and either bake or fry them in a pan with frying oil. Yes, you read correctly, you can also fry the eggplant cutlets. I’m not a big fan of frying, although I offered the Cheese Balls a few days ago, and I noticed that you really liked them. So many of you tried them and shared your photos with me!
