Easy, quick and cheesy Baked Eggplant Penne Pasta is made with chunks of eggplant, ricotta, mozzarella, and tomatoes! This penne pasta bake is so delicious and perfect for busy weeknights.
If you love penne pasta as much as I do, you should also try my Balsamic Penne Pasta with Asparagus and Tomatoes or my Creamy Spinach and Artichoke Penne Pasta.
My Family Loves This Penne Pasta With Eggplant
I have developed a relationship of sorts with this penne pasta recipe. We meet a lot. Especially when my eggplants start to appear in my garden.
I find it kind of odd that I don’t post pasta recipes more often because, believe it or not, I make pasta at least thrice a week. My husband is a huge fan. If he could, he would live on my provencal spaghetti dish. Which reminds me, I need to share that with you. Maybe next week.
Anyways.
There are two things going on right now.
There’s a bee in the kitchen and I’m alone with the kids. Also, there’s Coconut Baklava sitting on my kitchen counter. The bee is buzzing all around it. She probably smelled the honey and is after me for consuming the darn thing.
Clearly, I am not going to go and fight the monster. The kids and I are downstairs, sitting in the corner, waiting for the bee to just disappear. HOW that’s going to happen, I dunno. At least I have my laptop with me so I can finish up my post. And Tangled is on repeat.
If you don’t hear from me in two days, send the bee keepers. Or firemen. I’m scurred. For reals. I don’t like being this close to a bee.
What is In This Penne Pasta Bake?
But, here’s what I want you to know about this pasta; It’s pretty amazing.
Why is it amazing?! Because it contains handfuls of shredded mozzarella and a whole tub of rrrricotta. Roll the “r” when you say that – sounds more authentic, ya know. Also, the few cloves of garlic make it that much better. Of course the eggplant. And the basil. And the tomatoes. This can go on forever – I mind as well give you the recipe. 😉
I should also add that this recipe makes a lot. If you don’t like leftovers, call the neighbors over for dinner. 🙂
Hope you are having a fantastic Sunday!
ENJOY!
Baked Eggplant Penne Pasta
Ingredients
- 1 box (1-pound) penne pasta
- butter for baking dish
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 3 cloves garlic , minced
- 2 small eggplants , washed and diced into 1-inch cubes.
- salt and pepper , to taste
- 1 can (28-ounces) diced tomatoes, do not drain
- 1 tub (15-ounces) part-skim ricotta cheese
- 2 cups part-skim shredded mozzarella cheese , divided
- 3 tablespoons thinly sliced fresh basil leaves
- olive oil
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425.
- Cook penne pasta for 6 minutes; drain.
- While pasta is cooking, butter a 13x9 baking dish; set aside.
- Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-low heat.
- Add garlic and cook for 1 minute, or until fragrant.
- Stir in diced eggplant, season with salt and pepper, and continue to cook over medium-high heat until tender, about 7 minutes; stirring occasionally
- Mix in tomatoes and cook until heated through; about 2 minutes.
- Remove from heat.
- Stir in ricotta and 1 cup shredded mozzarella.
- Pour pasta into prepared baking dish and mix in the eggplant mixture and basil; mix until thoroughly combined.
- Drizzle with olive oil.
- Sprinkle the rest of the mozzarella cheese on top.
- Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until cheese is melted.
- Let cool for 5 minutes.
- Serve.
Nutrition
Nutritional info is an estimate and provided as courtesy. Values may vary according to the ingredients and tools used. Please use your preferred nutritional calculator for more detailed info.
I have been cooking for years and I’ve started blogging recently. I love to try new recipes. Egg plant one of my favourites. I will make this today for my garden party and let you know how it turns out.
Halved the recipe and it is still more than 4 servings. This was good though! Would take the skin off the eggplants next time and salt the eggplant for 20 minutes or so before cooking to get the bitterness out. Thank you!
Hi Samantha! SO glad you enjoyed it!
Normally, 1-pound of pasta serves 4 to 6 people as a main course, and that is why I have it written as so.
I love eggplant! This looks so good, I just pinned it. Stopping by from Inspiration Monday.
Sounds nice. Thank you.
do you know if you can cut up eggplant the day before to make this dish or does it turn brown?
Hi! Yes, the eggplant will wilt if you do that. Maybe you can cut it up and freeze it…that should work!
This looks delicious!!! I’ve had a bee in my car while I was driving before! I totally pulled off to the side of the road, threw my door open and ran a bit aways. hahaha
LOL! I’m picturing it!! I would have done the same! hahaha
Yummy! Making this for dinner tonight, hope you survived the visit from the bee 😉
Dude! That thing would not LEAVE! She just kept buzzing around… my husband came home and got rid of her. 😀
P.S. ENJOY YOUR DINNER!!!
Mmmm…….Yummo Kate! Leftovers I hear…….no problem…..I’m on my way. Aaaahhh……then again……maybe not…..It may be one Big flight!
LOL! 🙂 I knooooow, it’s SO far! .. and now I’m singing, “We come from the land down undah…” hehe
Gorgeous pasta dish, Kate! If I could, I would eat pasta every day. Perhaps for every meal. Yours looks ah-mazing! Thanks for sharing. Already pinned!
Kate,
I hope the bee is gone. I woke up in the middle of the night, went to powder my nose, looked up and saw a beetle on the ceiling. Before I could react, it jumped into the sink. “Down came the rains” and washed the beetle away. Then I saw frass and realized a caterpillar must have climbed into the hanging plant when it went outside for a rain shower, reached up, and squished that interloper. Then went back to bed. In the morning I emailed my spouse about the death and destruction.
I made ricotta yesterday, and hope I get eggplant in the farm share this week because I could get behind this pasta. Thanks!
I’m totally in love with your pasta… It looks amazing!! So gonna make this for me and my boyfriend next week!!
I hope you’ll love it!!! Thank you! 🙂
Wow, this looks delicious.
Thank you, Miss Fabulous! 😀
This looks like a really good comfort dish to me. I’d definitely each a huge serving of this!
I adore eggplant, and pasta for that matter. I am also not afraid of bees. 🙂 If it helps, just know that a bee does not WANT to sting you because if it does, it dies. Their stingers are barbed, which is why they stay in you if you’re stung. So, the bee just wants to get out. Walk in slowly, open a door, leave again and wait.
OK… I think this is the first dish containing that….eggplant… that has me actually tempted! It might have something to do with the rrrricotta and pasta and garlic and tomatoes, (those I could actually live on!), but this dish looks perfect! My dad loves eggplant… I just might have to surprise him.
Funny story… I made a Honeyed Apple Cake a few years back. Set the apples on the stove to simmer with the honey and had to run upstairs for something. Who was the not so bright person who left the back door open?? Umm… that would be me. And as I returned downstairs only 5 minutes or so later we had about 50 bees all buzzing around my apples in the kitchen!!! Talk about panic! I put the apples outside and thankfully some of the bees followed it. The rest I either shooed out or caught in a dish towel. Took over an hour! Note to self, close door in summer when simmering honey.
Bees scare me too!
This eggplant penne pasta looks delish, may I have yours if you don’t survive the bee? 😀
If it were up to my son we’d eat pasta everyday, three times a day. I adore it too though so will definitely put this one in our pasta rotation as we call it. 🙂 It looks divine Kate!
Looks yummy! Thank you for the recipe and I hope the bee has buzzed away. 🙂
I thought I was a loser for cooking pasta at least 2-3 times a week so thank you for admitting you do the same-I feel much better about it lol. Pasta is much loved in my house too, in fact that is what we had today :-). Must give this recipe a swirl, love ricotta in pasta! Pasta is SO versatile and can even be healthy 🙂
Being married to an Italian we eat pasta almost every day. At least five times a week and I rarely get tired of it! Just discovered that my 1 year old loves egg plant! Must give this a try! Oh and I’m totally hanging in the basement with you till the beekeeper comes!
Yes please, this certainly looks amazing! What’s not to love about eggplant and pasta? 🙂