Ziti and Eggplant

  4.2 – 24 reviews  • Eggplant

The entire family will enjoy the innovative dessert of apple-baked oats. Apples with the cores removed are baked with brown sugar and cinnamon, creating a tasty treat.

Prep Time: 15 mins
Cook Time: 1 hr
Total Time: 1 hr 15 mins
Servings: 6
Yield: 6 servings

Ingredients

  1. 2 tablespoons olive oil
  2. 1 eggplant, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
  3. 1 (28 ounce) can crushed tomatoes
  4. 2 tablespoons minced fresh basil
  5. ground black pepper to taste
  6. 1 ¼ teaspoons white sugar (Optional)
  7. 1 (7 ounce) jar roasted red pepper, drained and cut into strips
  8. 1 (16 ounce) package dry ziti pasta
  9. 3 pita bread rounds
  10. 2 tablespoons butter
  11. ¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese or to taste
  12. sweet paprika to taste
  13. salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

  1. Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat, and cook the eggplant about 10 minutes. Stir in the tomatoes, basil, pepper, and sugar. Simmer, stirring occasionally, 45 minutes. Mix the roasted red peppers into the skillet with the eggplant mixture. Continue cooking until eggplant is the consistency of the rest of the sauce.
  2. Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Place ziti pasta in the pot, cook 9 to 11 minutes, until al dente, and drain. Serve the eggplant and tomato sauce over the cooked ziti.
  3. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Open pitas and evenly spread insides with butter. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and season with paprika, salt and pepper. I like to make a light sprinkling of paprika across each piece. Heat pitas in the preheated oven until golden brown, about 6 minutes. Use to scoop up eggplant sauce, or eat separately.

Nutrition Facts

Calories 545 kcal
Carbohydrate 92 g
Cholesterol 13 mg
Dietary Fiber 10 g
Protein 18 g
Saturated Fat 4 g
Sodium 534 mg
Sugars 5 g
Fat 12 g
Unsaturated Fat 0 g

Reviews

Whitney Long
Ziti and Eggplant by toezar. Added an onion, 4 cloves garlic, 1T dried oregano, 1/8t fennel, ground; no peppers. Blended to hide the eggplant. Blend in two batches to minimize orange color.
Robin Larsen
I added garlic and onion and sautéed it with the eggplant. Also added spiced pepper paste with crushed tomatoes. Delicious hot and cold.
Erika Stevens
I didn’t have any roasted red pepper, so I roasted a green pepper at 500 degrees for about 20 minutes. I blobbed ricotta on the top when I served it. This is a great dish!
Heather Johnson
Excellent! Subbed coconut oil, used jarred sauce, used dried red peppers. This was just great and I will make this many more times. Thanks for giving me the idea of putting eggplant with mac and sauce.
Richard Tapia
I’ve made this a few times now. It doesn’t wow me–lacks flavor as written. I’ll keep making it, but add more Italian seasoning and perhaps simply salt & pepper to make it more interesting.
Courtney Chandler
3.18.13 … https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/73915/ziti-and-eggplant/ … Since I’m giving this a good review, I don’t feel badly about minor changes. I like experimenting & learning from others’ trys. I can’t help it! 😀 Added an onion, 4 cloves garlic, 1T dried oregano, no peppers. Blended to hide the eggplant. It worked! KK liked it so much she requested it two days later. 😮 🙂 Also added 1/8t fennel, ground. The sauce turned orange-y in one batch so I’ll divide it in two next time. Not a big deal, just me being weird. ;D ‘Didn’t do the pitas, but I’ll get there someday. Put about half pound italian blend cheese in & remaining half on top. Thanks for an inexpensive & pretty healthy meal!
Robert Rodriguez
Really very good. I just didn’t add the roasted peppers (didn’t have any) and used Gemelli pasta – and it was yum… even for my 4-year-old 🙂
Timothy Avery
Fantastic recipe – one of the best vegetarian pastas I have had. I did add some onion, garlic, and oregano in the beginning, and a little bit of shredded mozarella towards the end. Also I mixed the sauce and pasta together for a few minutes so that there was no way for my 2 year old to avoid the veggies – turned out he loved the sauce and was picking out the eggplant pieces to eat them directly.
Christopher Simpson
I found it to be way too sweet. Also, I imagine sauteed onion would be a wonderful addition.
Kimberly Smith
Great recipe. Even my little brother liked it and he’s pretty hard to please.
Daniel Weaver
The cheesy pita pockets are what make this recipe, otherwise it’s difficult to taste anything outside of the tomato stew. Would probably not make again.
Caitlyn Sharp
Made this tonight and it turned out delicious. I started by cooking some onions first, followed by eggplant and mushrooms. For the sauce I added a combination of Italian whole canned tomatoes, and pureed tomatoes. The roasted red peppers give the sauce a nice smokey sweetness. I also added garlic, Italian seasoning, oregano, and basil, as well as fennel seed. I learned from another excellent recipe on this site to add the fennel and it really make the sauce taste nice and meaty, sans the meat. I also made the pita cheese bread with the paprika and that was quite good too.
Jeffrey Ferguson
This recipe was so simple! I’ve never even dared cook eggplant before, and the dish just turned out so delicious. I made it with the crushed tomatoes that come with the Italian herbs, and put some slices of provolone on top of the sauce to melt right before I served it over whole wheat pasta. The roasted red peppers put the flavor right over the top!
Wanda Chapman
This is a great base to start with. I added fresh basil, garlic, and oregeno. It would be great with artichokes and/or mushrooms added also. It got my extra picky husband to eat eggplant so I’m thrilled!
Laurie Lee
This recipe was okay,my family likes eggplant and so I wanted to try something different so tried this recipe….I used eggnoodles instead of ziti but something was missing ….sorry but this dish did not click with me or my family!
Connie Powell
This is interesting, needs something else to add some flavor. I added tomatoes with chili’s and that spiced it up a bit, but it still needs a little something. To make it cook quicker I put it in a pressure cooker for 10 minutes (instead of the 45 min in pot). The eggplant was very tender and perfect. Maybe some parm cheese on top would be good. I will saute some onions and garlic to add next time.
Patrick Cordova
I love eggplant so I enjoyed this, it did however lack flavor. I added parmesean cheese to the skillet. I also cooked chicken on the side in butter, garlic and fresh parsley. When cooked through I added it to the eggplant and tomatoes. It tasted much better.
James Figueroa DDS
This was a good recipe. It takes a while to cook, but my fiance (who doesn’t eat eggplant) even enjoyed it. We did add chunks of chicken the recipe which made it more filling.
Stephen Haynes
This was just OK, the eggplant took a lot longer than it was supposed to soften.
Tonya Peters
Not my type of sauce. Too acidic. I feel that zuccini gives a very smooth and savory taste. Eggplant just isnt meant for this type of sauce. Sorry
Bryan Dunn
I used whole wheat pasta instead of ziti. This is SO tasty! The eggplant absorbed all of the flavors and I couldn’t even tell I was eating eggplant.

 

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