This cheesy eggplant bake recipe is a perfect weeknight dinner – this vegetarian casserole, which feeds a crowd, is loaded with fresh eggplant, baby spinach and fire roasted tomatoes.
This dish can be picked fresh from the garden. Roasted eggplant, juicy red tomatoes and fiber rich baby spinach come together deliciously.
Topped off with a easy cheesy crust this is one of those easy recipes that is sure to please.
Don’t have a garden?
Then head to your grocery store or local farmer’s market where are you are sure to find the freshest ingredients.
But you don’t need to wait for summer or even fall to get your hands on these ingredients. This cheesy baked eggplant recipe is delicious any time of the year.
It’s perfect for weekly meal plans and a great addition when you have dinner plans with the neighbors.
Also called a brinjal bake or baked talong, this baked aubergine casserole is all one in the same.
I used to make this cheesy eggplant casserole recipe all the time for my father in law. He loved eggplant and always requested this dish for dinner.
Eggplant wasn’t easy to come by in his childhood. I happily obliged. This cheesy eggplant casserole reminds me of him and I still make it regularly.
I grow eggplant in the garden and there is nothing like using fresh ingredients like white or purple eggplant, fresh picked tomatoes and fresh spinach leaves.
How to Make Baked Eggplant with Cheese
First, slice the eggplant in to 1/2 inch slices, sweat the slices for a half hour. Next, grab a large glass non greased baking dish.
Place the eggplant slices in the bottom of the dish and sprinkle salt over the tops and drizzle with a little bit of olive oil.
Cook eggplant slices in the oven for about 10 minutes until the eggplant is soft.
Next simmer spinach, fire roasted tomatoes, chopped onion and fresh garlic in a large skillet on medium heat until the spinach wilts.
Assemble the eggplant in a casserole dish in a single layer and top with the spinach and tomato mixture.
Mix together the ricotta, Parmesan and fresh mozzarella cheeses.
Spread the cheeses on top and bake the whole thing for about 40 minutes in 425 degrees F oven.
Top with a half cup of fresh basil and serve!
Is this Cheesy Eggplant Bake Vegetarian?
This vegetarian dish is a perfect side dish or main course. Loaded with spinach, tomatoes and a few other vegetables, it’s a complete meal when you want a meatless Monday!
And it’s an easy way to prepare eggplant with no frying involved. And did I mention it’s low carb!
Throw it all in a casserole dish and this meal pretty much cooks itself.
This casserole will be bubbling as it comes out of the oven. Let it sit for about 5 minutes before serving.
This is one of my favorite eggplant recipes and is similar to my Crispy Eggplant Parmesan recipe. If you love eggplant, you’ll love this recipe too.
Easy casseroles for dinner
Try these easy casseroles for quick meals:
- Spinach and Meat Lasagna
- Hash Brown Egg Bake Casserole
- Buffalo Hashbrown Chicken Casserole
- Hash Brown Chicken Casserole
If you love this recipe, please leave a comment with a five-star rating. Be sure to follow HOME & PLATE on FACEBOOK | INSTAGRAM | PINTEREST for all the latest content, recipes and updates.
Remember to subscribe to HOME & PLATE NEWSLETTER to get the latest recipes delivered directly to your inbox!
Easy Cheesy Eggplant Bake Recipe (Vegetarian Casserole)
Ingredients
- 1 1 large eggplant, sliced into 1/2 inch rounds
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 1/2 small onion, chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, chopped
- 2 small tomatoes, chopped
- 1 14 ounce can Hunt’s Fire Roasted Tomatoes with garlic
- 1 bunch fresh spinach leaves, cleaned, dried, stems removed
- 1/2 cup ricotta cheese
- 1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
- 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
- 1/2 cup fresh basil leaves, chopped
Instructions
- Slice the eggplant into 1/2 inch slices and place on a plate. Sprinkle with kosher salt and allow to sweat for 30 minutes. Rinse the slices and blot dry with paper towels.
- Heat oven to 350°F. Layer eggplant slices on a lined baking sheet and drizzle each side with olive oil and season with salt and black pepper. Bake for 10 minutes.
- While the eggplant is baking, combine the mozzarella, ricotta, and Parmesan in a large bowl and mix well.
- Next, in a sauce pan over medium heat sauté the onion for about three minutes until caramelized. Add the garlic cloves, chopped tomato and spinach to the pan and stir until the spinach has wilted. Add the Hunt’s fire roasted tomatoes to the pan and stir to incorporate. The mixture should be saucy.
- Increase the oven temp to 425 degrees. Arrange the baked eggplant slices in a rectangular baking dish and pour the tomato mixture on top.
- Sprinkle the top of the baking dish with the cheese mixture, add pepper to taste and cook for 30-40 minutes or until the casserole is cheesy and bubbly on top.
Notes
If you make this recipe, be sure to snap a photo and hashtag it #homeandplate. I’d love to see what you cook!
I love this recipe. This is my kind of dinner. I love Eggplant, cheese and all the other ingredients this is made with. Thanks for the recipe.
Thanks…I agree. My kind of dinner too!
This looks amazing! Most of my kids aren’t eggplant fans, but my oldest daughter and I love it, we’ll have to give this a try!
Thanks Marye. This dish is the perfect recipe to get kids to taste and see what eggplant is all about. Can’t go wrong topped with all that cheese.
I totally need to make this, my kids actually eat eggplant and I think they’d enjoy your version with all the cheese!
Lucky you. My kids are not eggplant lovers. I hope your kids enjoy it. Thanks Sara.
This looks so good to me! I love eggplant and have some growing in my garden, once they are ready to harvest I look forward to trying this! Eggplant + tomato + cheese is my favorite!
Thanks Emily….I love to grow eggplant. It tastes so much better picked fresh.
My hubs LOVES eggplant so I’m always looking up new ways to make his eggplant loving dreams come true. This delicious bake looks like just the right thing!
I agree with your hubby. He’s got great taste! Thanks:)
Made the recipe love it but I just read the recipe part and only the beginning of the notes above the recipe.. just a heads up if you are looking to make.. the recipe section doesn’t state to change your oven temp from the 350 to 425. Our dish didn’t come out how exactly like these pictures and assuming that’s the reasoning. Still an amazing recipe regardless !!
Thanks Sage for that catch. The recipe card has been updated to reflect…thanks 🙂
I’d love to know nutritional data per serving so that the recipe could be easily translated into WW SmartPoints.
Thanks Linda for your interest. While I don’t have a nutritional calculator on my website I was able to pull up some info that might help you. After plugging in the recipe ingredients into an online recipe calculator I was able to get an estimate that I hope helps….Thanks…as long as you go easy on the cheese you should be in a good place. Enjoy!
Cheesy Eggplant Bake
1 Serving
Servings Per Recipe: 6
Amount Per Serving
Calories: 272
Calories from Fat: 160
Sounds delicious. I have celiac disease, so I cannot have the traditional eggplant Parm. Do you mean a 13 x 9" baking dish when you say rectangle baking dish?
Hi Kay….you can prepare this dish in either a 13×9 or an 11×7. I’ve used both sizes depending on how big the eggplant is. Both will work, one will be a bit fuller than the other. Good luck. I know you love it. Let me know how it turns out:)
Has anyone tried to make this ahead a few days? Does it work well?
Hi Lori. I usually make this recipe fresh the day we eat it. I would think that the eggplant would brown and the spinach would wilts if it were prepared a few days ahead of time and stored in the fridge. I would think you could prepare this recipe ahead of time and freeze it. That may work better to keep everything freshly frozen. I would bake it frozen and maybe add an additional 20 to 30 minutes to the total cook time. You want the cheese to be bubbling hot when you serve it. If you try freezing it let me know how it turns out. Good luck?
This is Awesome! Made this tonight because the hubby bought egg plant to have and I came across this recipe cause I wanted to do it differently this time. Of course I couldn’t find the fired tomatoes here in the sticks.? So I used a can of tomatoes with garlic,basil and oregano, and my home grown tomatoes. It was really good, and definitely worth saving. Thanks for sharing loving Pinterest ? In PA
Thank you Robin. I love hearing from readers when they find a new recipe favorite. This one must be absolutely phenomenal with homegrown tomatoes. I am definitely going to follow your lead and prepare this soon for my family using all the tomatoes that are growing in my garden. Thanks for visiting.
I love this recipe!!!!! I just made it for my man and he doesn’t care for eggplant and he totally loved it (:
It’s a great way to hide the veggies. Thanks for the great feedback. 🙂