Eggplant Parm Lasagna: Eventually.

Introduction: You Want the Recipe Right Away. Too Bad.

I know you came here for the recipe. You want me to skip the sob story and get to the part where I tell you how many cloves of garlic to use. Spoiler alert: zero. Because this recipe uses garlic powder. If that offends you, I suggest you click away and go cry into your imported truffle oil.

I know you’re looking for my recipe for eggplant parm lasagna. You probably are expecting company or want to impress someone and have turned to the internet for help. Everyone loves lasagna. It’s comfort food. It’s accommodating. It’s delicious. It’s bougie. Well, I’m telling you right now, you’ll have to get through a few dozen more paragraphs and help me unpack YEARS of childhood trauma before we even get to the breadcrumbs.

Step One: Preheat the Oven (and a National Identity Crisis).

All recipes start the same way—preheating the oven to 375°F. But because I’m Canadian and feeling patriotic, I’m going to use a smattering of metric and imperial units to confuse the heck out of everyone reading this. Since I feel the need to explain this, I’ll make a bold statement to segue into several paragraph long tangent having nothing to do with the recipe whatsoever.

Canadians are proud people, with a rich culture, but we are a unique bunch. This is because we aren’t one culture, we’re a smattering of different cultures wearing a trench coat, pretending to be one. So, despite the world’s misconception, we don’t either metric OR imperial. Nay, we have our OWN system, a pidgin of a variety of measurements used for different purposes.

For example, when we’re telling you the temperature, we’ll use Celsius—unless it’s the temperature in an oven or a pool, in which case we’ll use Fahrenheit. When we’re measuring length, we will measure our height in feet and inches, unless we’re a doctor or we’re getting our fishing license.

When we’re measuring short distances, we will generally use metric at home, but Imperial at work (once again, unless we are working in medicine or other specific fields working with precise amounts), and if we’re measuring long distances, we use time. If you ask someone the distance between Niagara Falls and Toronto, and they give you a measurement in EITHER kilometers or miles, they’re an imposter.

I’ll also sometimes be a little vague. We’re not making a rocket. It’s just lasagna. Use however much garlic you want.

Getting back to food, I’ll once again tell you to pre-heat your oven to 375°F as all recipes do, even though they know, unless you’re making one of those watery frozen lasagnas, it’s probably going to take you a couple hours to assemble this bad boy, and your nicely pre-heated oven will be sitting idle for a while. That is, unless, you’re somehow or other for some strange reason you’re cooking this over an open fire, in which case, you’d better get to chopping.

When you’re ready, set your oven to 375°F—unless you’re not sure how strong your oven is, your landlord hasn’t fixed the dial yet, or you have trust issues—in which case around 350°F and constant anxiety will do.

Get Saucy:

Sauce. Just like mom makes. Start with ground beef. Not veal. Not some artisanal grass-fed heritage pork blend raised on opera and dandelion greens. Just beef. The kind that comes in a plastic tube and makes a noise like a wet fart when you cut it open. Yes, Jamie. This is pink slime. Seasoned pink slime. And it kept us fed all growing up. *mutters* …gentrified know-it-all…

Brown it in a pan. Don’t add water or overcrowd it. Or do. I’m sure I don’t need to explain how to brown ground beef or tell a long, boring tale about a midwife I once had that did it a certain way and the benefits to it, or spend any further time on it. Oh, and you’ll want to add your vegetables at some point. Onions. Carrots. Maybe a little celery. Or don’t. I’m not your Nonna. She’s not here to judge. Actually, she’s too busy spinning in her grave because we’re about to use *gasps* jarred tomato sauce. Yes. Jarred. From a shelf. No-name brand if you’re brave. Rao’s if you’re trying to impress a date. I’m Canadian, so we’ll probably go with Primo or Prego.

Stir that up and then splash in red wine if you have it. The kind that costs less than $30 and taste like sadness. Bonus points if it has a funny name, has a screw cap, or comes in a box. If you turn your nose up at boxed wine, you’ve already missed the plot. Or if you’re a non-drinker, use beef or chicken stock. Or just tap water. Good old tap water.

Turn the heat up for a moment and then splash whichever wine or water or stock or combination of the three that you’ve come up with right in there and rub it with a wooden spoon getting all those lovely bits of flavour that stuck to the pan. These days they call it de-glazing the pan. Back when I was a kid, we called it scraping up all the burnt crud off the bottom of the pan before mom realizes that you’ve ditched the stove to go watch Power Rangers. Same result. Fewer French terms. More Megazords.

Season Like It's 1996:

Garlic powder. Onion powder. Basil. Some of that dried parsley that’s older than your cat. Maybe a little oregano if you’re feeling fancy. Oh, and war—warsh—washershy—war sauce. We’ll call it war sauce. Add a bit. Don’t look up how it’s made. Especially if you’re Jamie Oliver. If he thinks “pink slime” is ick, wait until he finds out what’s in that stuff. Well, we like it, and we don’t judge.

Then add a bay leaf (which we’ll forget to pull out later and unceremoniously take a bite of—yuck!) and simmer. Actually, at this point it’s a bit of a tradition in our family. My niece calls it a “magic leaf.” I told her you get a wish if it ends up in your bowl at the end. Anyhow, simmer for at least 30 minutes if you’re trying. Ten if you’re tired. Then set aside. Here’s where the fun begins.

Eggplant: The Reckoning

We’re going to paraphrase the late great John Pinette when we say, boldy and without hesitation, that eggplant in the wrong hands is a horrific vegetable that tastes like soggy cardboard and has the potential to break up families right at the dinner table. Don’t risk it. We resist the urge to interrogate people at the grocery store, if we see them about to buy it. “Excuse me, ma’am? Do you have a family recipe for that? Maybe your Aunt Marie told you how to make it? No? THEN PUT IT DOWN YOU’VE DONE ENOUGH DAMAGE. There are two ways to cook eggplant. 1) Parmesan that a member of the family taught you how to make, or 2) Leave it alone.

So, as a deed in good faith, I’m breaking the fourth wall here to tell you my personal secret to making good tasting eggplant and potentially stopping a family feud and who knows…maybe war. Maybe war. The secret to good tasting eggplant is to SALT THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS OUT OF IT.

The folksy hipster types will tell you eggplant doesn’t need to be salted. Some people just want to see the world burn. For our eggplant parmesan (which in this recipe functions as lasagna noodles), slice the eggplant lengthwise, as thin as can be safely done. Get a colander or a wire rack over the sink. Sprinkle each side and then flip, or just dredge these babies right in a bowl of sea salt. Don’t worry. I won’t tell your cardiologist.

Smart, science-y types say that the salt draws out excess water and bitter something-or-others and use fancy words like bitter alkaloids or amino acid proteins. I’m not sure about that. Mostly, I figure it works because salt tastes good. It’s that simple. Once salted, let these drip for a while and then rinse them off and pat dry with a paper towel.

Next, you’re going to want to set up a little mini breading station, complete with a small bowl of flour for dredging, egg for dipping, and a mixture of bread crumbs and parmesan cheese. Or just use that pre-grated, powdered parmesan that comes in the little bottle with the red or green plastic cap, and mix a bunch into your egg and skip an entire step. No breadcrumbs needed, as it’s at least 50% cellulose (i.e. wood pulp) powder anyway. Bonus points for getting your fiber intake.

Get a pan nice and toasty on medium-high heat and then throw some butter in the already warm pan. If all you have is margarine, I’ll forgive you. If you’re using olive oil, good for you. You probably guessed what the next step is going to be. We’re going to make these eggplant slices into French toast here. Dredge, dip, and fry. We’ve nearly assembled everything to layer our lasagna and pop it in the oven.

Too Tired for Eggplant? Yeah, That's Valid...

If you’re a normal person and you realized a few paragraphs ago that the whole eggplant parmesan thing was going to be a giant hassle, I won’t judge. In fact, you are probably reading this in the pasta aisle of the grocery store right now, looking for those ready-bake lasagna noodles. Good call. Easy peasy. While you’re there there, pick up some prune juice, because we are going to use an ungodly amount of cheese in this monstrosity.

White Sauce for the Lazy (and the Wise):

The next step is to make our “white sauce,” which the fancy French chefs refer to as bechamel. We don’t really have a joke for this. Simmering milk, being careful not to burn it, waiting, waiting, waiting. Making a blond roux. Careful not to burn it. Pah. We don’t have time for all that.

Breaking the fourth wall again, here’s a real life hack straight from my very real mom of six—use a couple cans of evaporated milk. My mum is the kind of sweet, unquestionably supportive mom that likes all your posts--even those edgy Facebook statuses. Since she’ll likely be reading this at some point, I'll add a shout out. Mum, if you’re reading this, your lasagna is—no joke—my absolute favourite food in the entire world. Also, I apologize for implying that the use of evaporated milk and ready-bake lasagna noodles instead of bechamel and fried eggplant is lazy. Love ya mum!

Actually, I’ve always felt that the world runs on lazy people. Forget money or bull faeces…it’s us that makes the world go ‘round. Where would we be as a society if someone wasn’t too lazy to wake up every couple hours and refill the darn oil lamps, shovel all that horse poop up off the street and cart it all away, or tend to the fire? We lazy people are the reason electric lighting, automobiles, and furnaces were invented. You’re welcome!

The Cheese Wars:

To the evaporated milk, we’re going to add ricotta cheese. If you’re on a budget, cottage cheese will do…just know that my mom is still reading this and is disappointed in you for doing so, and that I can’t for the life of me stand cottage cheese. “But author….” I’m sure several readers (and my wife who loves the stuff) are thinking, “What do you mean you don’t like your cream cheese pre-chewed?” Bleck!

This next part is a matter of debate. My mom uses pure mozzarella and a LOT of it. I hope you bought those prunes I mentioned earlier. My wife’s mom, however, uses pretty much every cheese that’s known to man. A full brick of each and more for the top. There may be even be Babybels in there. Who knows. Oh, except she hates anything made with goat’s milk or which smells funny.

I like to disappoint BOTH of them by using every kind of cheese instead of straight mozza AND topping every layer of sauce in the dish with feta. This is probably the only bougie thing about my recipe, other than the eggplant. Jamie Oliver would probably call it "rustic fusion" and charge $38.

Then again, my mother-in-law would have automatically stopped reading when she got to the word eggplant anyway. See? Eggplant is a delicious vegetable in the right hands, and some jerk has ruined it for her by trying some fancy-pants bougie recipe that doesn’t begin with coating it in an arrhythmia-inducing amount of sodium.

Some Assembly Required:

Now, to assemble and bake the thing…I don’t know why, but I’m rather picky about which casserole dish I cook the lasagna in. I prefer glass or porcelain, and I use cooking spray or butter or a little drizzle of olive oil to grease the inside of it as if I’m baking a cake. After all, isn’t lasagna basically a birthday cake made of spaghetti? Boom. Mind blown. Now you won’t be able to get that out of your head.

I start out with sauce and follow a specific pattern. The order…the ONLY pattern that is acceptable, in my humble opinion, starting from the bottom: 1) Sauce. 2) Noodles/Eggplant. 3) Ricotta. 4) Cheese. Repeat until the casserole is full or you run out. I'll forgive you if you change up the order. It’s not like I’ll be watching. But your Nonna will know.

The Grand Finale:

Cover with tin foil and bake at whatever temperature you decided upon and set a timer for 30 minutes of doom scrolling. When the alarm goes off, close the clock app, uncover, and cook for 15 more. Give it more time if the noodles are soft and it's cooked through.

There you have it. No, this isn’t Nonna’s secret recipe passed down hand-measured amounts. It’s not made with heirloom organic non-GMO tomatoes grown on the fertile slopes of an extinct volcano in Sicily. It’s sauce. It’s cheese. It’s eggplant (and/or noodles). It fed six hungry kids on many occasions, and was one of the only foods my mom could make us growing up that would actually result in leftovers, not because it wasn’t delicious, but because it is a sinfully angelic casserole of saturated fats and cheesy carb-ey goodness that fills you and leaves no room for dessert without first taking a nap.

It’s what we had on our birthdays when money was tight and Power Rangers was on. We didn't need heirloom tomatoes, just cheese, sauce, meat, noodles, and zero input from Jamie Oliver. And if that’s not gourmet enough for you, feel free to go hand crush your San Marzanos and go lecture somebody else about authenticity. Because around here we use garlic powder and jar-lic, cook with what we have, and call it a win when dinner makes the table before bedtime.

Congratulations! You've read nearly 3,000 words and still don't have exact measurements. Welcome to food blogging.

But hey, I promised you a recipe, didn't I? So here it is, in all its loosely-measured, family-approved, garlic powdered glory:

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Eggplant Parm Lasagna (A Rough Guide, Not a Court Order)

What You'll Probably Need:

- Anywhere from 1 to 3 lb of ground beef -- one if you're normal, three if you're descended from meat-and-potatoes men with a strong presence of Neanderthal DNA and absolutely ZERO portion control (Looking at you, Dad. Love ya).

- One large or two medium onions. A stalk or two of celery. One medium carrot. Grate them. Chop them small. Or skip them entirely.

- 1 or 2 large eggplants -- sliced thin for pan frying/searing.

- A mountain of mozzarella. Seriously. Don't measure. Just go until your ancestors whisper "that's enough?"

- 1 container ricotta -- usually 400-500g or 15-16oz.

- 1 can evaporated milk -- the small can. DON'T USE CONDENSED MILK. Trust me. They are NOT the same.

- 1 or 2 large jars of your favourite tomato sauce -- Primo, Prego, Ragu, Rao's, whatever. Nobody's checking.

- A splash of red wine or broth...or tap water -- boxed, capped, etc. Doesn't matter. We're de-glazing a pan, not christening a yacht.

- Breadcrumbs and grated parmesan. Or just the pre-grated/powdered, red-lidded canister with the mysterious cheese dust.

- 2 eggs and a handful or two of flour for dredging.

- Garlic powder, onion powder, basil, oregano, dried parsley, bay leaf – go wild.

- "War Sauce" aka. "Worcestershire Sauce" aka. "Wash Your Sister Sauce" -- Don't look up how it's made. Especially if you're Jamie Oliver.

- Salt and pepper -- Enough to make your cardiologist weep.

- Ready-bake lasagna noodles (optional) – for the eggplant-averse or time-crunched.

- Bake for 45 minutes to an hour. Serves 6. Or two Burnison boys after football practice.

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The result?

Self-respect, a lasagna that could resolve a property dispute,

And heartburn,

Lots of heartburn.

If you made it through this post, thank you.

If you actually make the lasagna, grazie.