Eat your veggies and stuffed eggplants!
Today, I want to share one of my favorite dishes with you: Stuffed eggplants!
For a long time, I didn’t eat eggplants at all because my mom just didn’t buy them for no reason. There are many delicious recipes with eggplants with playing just a featured part. They deserve better! Last year, I had “baba ganoush” the first time in my life and I simply LOVE IT. It’s similar to hummus but instead of chickpeas, you use eggplants. More on this, coming soon! 🙂
Eggplants are one of the best vegetables to bind excess bile acids. Besides other functions, they are produced by our liver as a way of getting rid of excess cholesterol. Excess or unbalanced bile acids are toxic and can increase the risk of suffering from cancer, gallstones, and Morbus Crohn. The fiber in eggplants is able to bind these bile acids and flush them out of our bodies. Plus, eating them provides you healthy antioxidants (anthocyanin which gives them their blue color), vitamins, and mineral nutrients such as manganese.
Eggplants are full of nutrients
You should avoid eating unripe eggplants because of solanine in their paring. Solanine is a glycoalkaloid poison and the plant’s natural defense. Ripe ones are fine and you can eat them raw as well. But don’t get frightened, you would have to eat several kilograms of them to get poisoned. So, nothing to be afraid of.
Now, let’s focus on my recipe 🙂
Equipment
- pan
- oven
- baking sheet
- small glass
Ingredients
- 2 eggplants
- 1 red bell pepper
- 2 red onions
- 200 g kidney beans drained
- 1 tbsp tomato puree
- some olive oil
- sea salt
- pepper
Vegan Cheese Sauce
- 2 tbsp almond butter
- ½ cup chopped fresh basil leaves
- 2 tbsp water
- 1 tsp lemon juice
- 50 g pistachios
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 400ºF/200ºC.
- Cut the eggplant in half and scoop out the center. Leave enough meat inside the skin (approx. 5mm) so that it holds its shape when baked. Put the scooped out eggplant halves on a baking sheet. Put some olive oil on the eggplants, some salt, and pepper. Then, place your baking sheet with the prepared halves in the oven for 20 minutes.
- Meanwhile, put a pan on the stove and preheat it with some olive oil. You can use coconut oil as well.
- Cut the scooped out center of the eggplants into small pieces. Put it into the hot pan and roast it. Cut, the red bell pepper and onions as well, add them. Add the kidney beans and tomato puree as well as some salt and pepper. I love turmeric, as well. Roast it all together.
- Now, your halves should be ready. Take the pan from the heat and the eggplant halves out of the oven. Fill the halves with the roasted vegetables.
- Use a fork to mix the almond butter in a small glass with water, some lemon juice and cut basil leaves. First, it is quite hard. Then, it gets smoother. Pour it over your stuffed eggplants and place the pistachios on it.
- Bake for another 10 minutes and enjoy!
Nutrients
It sounds quite complicated but it is so simple: Cut them in half, scoop out the center, put them in the preheated oven topped with olive oil, sea salt, and pepper. Meanwhile, roast the filling in a hot pan, mix the almond butter, and pour it over the stuffed eggplants. Then, bake again.
Alternative fillings
This is just one version of my stuffed eggplants. You can fill them with almost everything. Sometimes, I prepare a filling with boiled quinoa and chickpeas or with dried tomatoes, zucchinis, and smoked tofu. You can add nutritional yeast, too! Fill it with your favorite vegetables, with some leftovers in your fridge, and make your own creation! Even for hot summer days, they are perfect because you can eat them cold, as well. Or fill the baked halves with cold ingredients such as beetroot mixed with parsley and lemon juice – delicious as well and perfect for refilling your iron levels!
What’s your favorite filling? Check out my other plant-based recipes – you won’t regret it!
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