Eggplant Pasta Bake, Dried
Penne, dried eggplant and zucchini, and a hard cheese lid melted in the pot.
- calories
- 720
- weight
- 6 oz
- cal / oz
- 120
- protein
- 26 g
- serves
- 1, scales
- prep
- 2 min
- cook
- 14 min
- total time
- 16 min
- water
- 600 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
- Basecamp
- Car camping
- Vegetarian
- Nut free
- One pot
- Dehydrate ahead
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Penne or other short pasta | 2.5 oz | quick-cook if you can find it |
|---|---|---|
| Dehydrated eggplant | 1/3 cup | diced small, skin on, dried until leathery |
| Dehydrated zucchini | 1/3 cup | sliced thin before drying |
| Dried diced tomatoes | 2 tbsp | |
| Dried minced onion | 1 tbsp | |
| Garlic powder | 1/2 tsp | |
| Tomato powder or dehydrated pasta sauce leather | 3 tbsp | a jar of sauce dried down on a tray, then broken up |
| Parmesan, grated hard | 2 tbsp | the dry shelf-stable kind |
| Hard mozzarella or provolone | 1 oz | low-moisture, no fresh balls |
| Olive oil | 1 tbsp | |
| Salt and pepper | to taste | |
| Dried basil | 1/2 tsp |
Method
- Put the eggplant, zucchini, tomatoes, onion, and tomato powder in the pot with 600 ml of water. Let them sit ten minutes cold if you have the time. It cuts the cook.
- Bring it to a boil and add the pasta. Stir often, the tomato powder will catch on the bottom.
- Boil eight to ten minutes until the pasta is soft and the vegetables have given up. Add splashes of water if it goes dry before the pasta does.
- Kill the heat. Stir in the garlic powder, basil, oil, salt, and pepper.
- Lay the mozzarella on top, dust with parmesan, and put the lid on for three minutes. That is your broiler.
- Stir once and eat out of the pot.
The original is a skillet dish that finishes under a broiler with ricotta, fresh mozzarella, and a jar of sauce. None of that travels. Eggplant and zucchini dry well, though, and they rehydrate into something close to sauteed rather than mush, because both are mostly water to begin with. The jar of sauce becomes tomato powder or a sauce leather dried on a tray at home.
Cooking the pasta in the same water that rehydrates the vegetables is what keeps this to one pot. There is no draining, so the starch stays in and thickens the sauce the way the sauce jar used to. The cheese lid at the end is the broiler step: low-moisture mozzarella under a closed lid on a hot pot melts in about three minutes. Fresh ricotta and mozzarella balls are gone and not missed much.
Packing
Pasta and all the dried vegetables and powders go in one bag. Cheese and oil ride separately, cheese wrapped, oil in a dropper bottle.
Variations
- A foil packet of chicken turns it into a heavier dinner.
- Skip both cheeses and add a tablespoon of nutritional yeast to keep it vegan.
- Sun-dried tomatoes chopped fine work if you cannot get tomato powder.
https://mealswithmaria.site/eggplant-pasta-bake