Last year I told you that despite it being the opposite of eggplant season, I crave eggplant parmesan incessantly each winter. I mean, who doesn’t want an aromatic, cheese-stretchy, cozy casserole of ziti-like flavors, but without the heaviness of the pasta sometimes, right? What this post omitted was my recipe, which was kind of rude. The truth is that I wasn’t completely comfortable sharing it recipe because it’s not a True eggplant parmesan, or so I believed. It’s not breaded, it’s not fried, and there’s definitely no ricotta. Even title of the recipe as it was saved on my computer was self-conscious: (Not Really) Eggplant Parmesan.

So what changed? Going to Italy this summer! We ordered eggplant parmesan (parmigiana di melanzane) almost every time we saw it on the menu and do you know what would come out? A dish that looked like this — no breading, no crumbs, no ricotta. It made more sense when I read about the history of the dish from Emiko Davies which I’ll simply link to rather than poorly summarize (it’s fascinating!) but it also gave me the nudge to finally spring the recipe from my kitchen to yours.

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