Eggplant Parm in a Pot
Dried eggplant, tomato powder, and hard cheese. The baked casserole rebuilt as one pot of hot food.
- calories
- 720
- weight
- 5.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 131
- protein
- 26 g
- serves
- 1, scales
- prep
- 2 min
- cook
- 12 min
- total time
- 14 min
- water
- 500 ml boiled
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Canister stove
- Liquid fuel
- Backpacking
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Vegetarian
- Nut free
- One pot
- Dehydrate ahead
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Dehydrated eggplant slices | 1 cup, crumbled | one eggplant sliced 1/4 inch, dried until brittle |
|---|---|---|
| Tomato powder | 3 tbsp | or a crushed sun-dried tomato and a pinch of sugar |
| Italian breadcrumbs | 1/3 cup | |
| Parmesan, grated hard | 3 tbsp | the dry shelf-stable kind |
| Whole milk powder | 2 tbsp | stands in for the mozzarella pull |
| Olive oil | 1 tbsp | |
| Garlic powder, oregano, salt | 1 tsp total |
Method
- Boil 500 ml of water. Drop in the eggplant and tomato powder, stir, and pull it off the heat.
- Lid on. Ten minutes. The eggplant has to rehydrate before anything else happens, and it takes longer than it looks like it should.
- Back on low heat for a minute if it has gone cold. Stir in the milk powder and the herbs.
- Add the breadcrumbs a spoonful at a time until the sauce grabs and stops sloshing.
- Kill the heat, stir in the parmesan and the oil, and let it sit two minutes.
This started as a baked casserole: breaded eggplant, layered with sauce and two cheeses, forty minutes of oven. None of that survives a stove and one pot, so what carries over is the flavor structure. Eggplant, tomato, breadcrumb, salty cheese.
The breadcrumbs do the work the oven used to. Instead of a crust on each slice they thicken the whole pot, which is the only way to get a spoonable dinner without a colander. Mozzarella is out entirely; milk powder gives the fat and the softer dairy note, and the hard parmesan brings the salt. Rehydrate the eggplant first and fully. Dry eggplant stays squeaky and no amount of stirring later fixes it.
Packing
Eggplant, tomato powder, milk powder, and herbs in one bag. Breadcrumbs and parmesan in a second bag so they stay dry and go in last. Oil in a dropper bottle.
Variations
- A foil packet of chicken pushes it past 40 g of protein.
- Swap the breadcrumbs for instant potato flakes and it is gluten-free and thicker.
- Crumbled dried mushrooms replace some of the eggplant and add body.
https://mealswithmaria.site/baked-eggplant-parmesan-recipes