Easy Eggplant Rollatini
Savory oven-fried eggplant stuffed with an herby parmesan and ricotta cheese filling, smothered with marinara sauce and baked to perfection. This Easy Eggplant Rollatini is the perfect meal for when you just have to enjoy a hearty Italian dinner. A perfect match for your favorite bottle of vino, you won’t believe how easy this dish is to make!
This is a slightly healthier twist on a traditional Italian eggplant rollatini dish. Instead of frying (because who wants to deal with that cleanup, anyway?), the eggplant pieces are baked until just crispy, then rolled up with a ricotta filling and topped with marinara sauce and mozzarella cheese.
Not only is this an amazingly delicious way to cook eggplant, it’s also ridiculously easy to make. I’m serious. These eggplant pieces are baked and not fried, so there’s no need to be intimidated by that part of the recipe. You put some breadcrumbs on them, put them on a baking sheet and let your oven do the rest!
This is one of my mom’s favorite dishes. In fact, when my parents found out I was making this for the blog, they immediately started asking when it would be done and how long they really had to wait until they could dig in.
One of the downfalls of running a food blog is that you must first do a photoshoot with your food before digging in. It takes a bit of will power.
Cheesy, eggplant-y goodness… Yes, please!
Eggplant rollatini really is the perfect dish for a family dinner, or on a lazy Sunday night.
I’m really into cooking on Sundays. I’m not sure why. Maybe because it’s the only day I’m not really running errands, or working? Either way, it’s when most of the delicious things happen in my house.
Don’t forget to serve it with basil decoratively placed on top.
Or not, if you don’t want to.
…It’s a personal preference.
Eggplant rollatini is delicious no matter how you decorate it.
For the pictures here, I used 4c gluten free breadcrumbs, and coated the eggplant pieces in gluten free all-purpose flour. My family didn’t even know the difference!
You can use regular breadcrumbs and all-purpose flour for this recipe, too. Just follow directions the same as below.
The important part here is to slice the eggplant really thin, and you may want to keep some extra sauce on the side. I found this to be the perfect amount for me, but my mother always likes a bit more.
If you’re feeling really ambitious, check out my Easy Marinara Sauce recipe.
As always, serve up a big Italian dinner with an even bigger glass of wine.
I’m on team Moscato, personally.
If you like this recipe, be sure to follow me here on Pinterest!
Easy Eggplant Rollatini
Ingredients
- 2 medium eggplants
- 6 cups marinara sauce
- 1 1/2 cup gluten free all purpose flour, more as needed
- 4 large eggs
- 1/4 cup milk
- 2 1/2 cups seasoned gluten free breadcrumbs
- 2 cups ricotta cheese
- 1/2 cup parmesan cheese, grated
- 2 1/2 cups mozzarella cheese, shredded
- 2 tbsp fresh basil, chopped
- 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp black pepper
Equipment
- baking dish
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a large baking sheet and set aside.
- Cut eggplant lengthwise into 14 thin pieces (about 1/4-inch thick).
- Set three separate bowls next to baking sheet. Add flour to one bowl, beat eggs and milk together in the second bowl, and add breadcrumbs to the third bowl.
- Take piece of eggplant and dip in first bowl to coat with flour. Shake lightly to remove excess. Then dip eggplant in egg mixture, coating completely. Last, coat eggplant with breadcrumbs and place on baking sheet.
- Repeat with remaining pieces of eggplant.
- Bake eggplant for 15 minutes. Turn pieces over and bake an additional 15 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool.
- In a mixing bowl add ricotta cheese, parmesan, 1 cup mozzarella, basil, cayenne, salt, and pepper. Stir all ingredients together until combined.
- Add 2 cups marinara sauce to bottom of large baking dish, spreading evenly with a spoon.
- Take one piece of eggplant and add about 2 tbsp. ricotta filling to one end. Roll eggplant, leaving just enough room in the middle for the filling. Place seam side down in baking dish.
- Repeat for all eggplant slices.
- Top eggplant evenly with remaining marinara sauce and mozzarella cheese.
- Bake uncovered for 30 minutes, or until cheese is golden brown and a fork easily goes through eggplant.
Notes
Nutrition
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This dish is absolutely beautiful and looks delish! Sundays are my favorite days to cook too! I rarely cook eggplant, but I’m going to need to try this ASAP.
Thank you so much! I love eggplant, I don’t cook it nearly enough. Let me know how it goes. Sundays are the best, I get so much done! 🙂
Hi – just curious if these could be frozen as individual items. I love eggplant rolotini, but my husband doesn’t. Also – I have this at a local restaurant and they put sautéed onions, peppers and spinach inside, which is what I would do. Perfect full meal! Thanks
Hi Debbie, These would freeze really well. I would just add a little bit more sauce, so they don’t dry out when you’re reheating them. I make things like this in individual portions to take for lunch all the time. Sautéed onions, peppers, and spinach would be really good in this, too! I love extra veggies, great idea!
I have made eggplant parm for years using the baking the eggplant method. I slice them, dip in bread crumbs, egg then breadcrumbs again. Let sit in frig for 30 minutes then bake. I have frozen the baked eggplant, then used at a later time for more eggplant parm. I’m looking forward to making the Eggplant Rollatini
I want to make lunch for the staff at my kids school (150 people). Catering is too expensive so I wonder if I could make this in assembly line fashion as the main dish? what do you think?!
Hi Robin, This would be great for a lunch! If you find the rolling is too much work for 150 people, I’d even just stack the eggplant and put the filling between each piece, more like an eggplant parmesan. I’d also have a bit more sauce. It would go much faster 🙂
I learned a trick from a friend that cooks a lot for making less mess in the kitchen….
Use zip loc bags as you 3 bowls ,like shake and bake…. I will never do it again like mom taught me…..
I just made this dish last night and it was absolutely delicious. Even my husband loved it and he does not care for eggplant. This will be a regular for me ?
Thanks I’m so glad you liked it! 🙂
Husband is on a diet this is great and used fat free mozzarella and ricotta but added fresh sauté spinach to the ricotta mixture.. he loved them!
Can you make the eggplant the night before and then assemble the next day?
first time making rollatini, this was so good and even better reheated for a minute in the microwave the next day. I halved the recipe, next time may add salt somewhere in the bedding.
first time making rollatini, this was so good and even better reheated for a minute in the microwave the next day. I halved the recipe, next time may add salt somewhere in the breading.
Oh my goodness this recipe was absolutely amazing!! My new favorite way to make eggplant.
Have made this several times, delicious!! One time I added frozen spinach, very good. I saw many comments about freezing. I make extra eggplant and freeze. I Cook, freeze and defrost at a future date. You would never know it came out of freezer. I have frozen ricotta in the past and found the texture different when defrosted. Making today!
My wonderful friend Rita made this and gifted it to us for dinner last night. It was so delicious, it has become one of my favorite dishes. Well done….both of you!
The recipe came out well, liked the brinjal baked not fried.