One of my goals for 2015 is to create one new clean eating recipe a week. Now I cannot say whether all of them will end up on the blog because usually I make things a few times before they grace my blog, but my entire family loved this recipe except the littlest one. She is three and eggplant it is just not her thing yet. I love eggplant for many reasons. It is a healthy brain food, a beautiful color of purple, you can cook with it in so many dishes from pizzas, salads, curries, pasta dishes, and other main dishes. I had never had eggplant roll ups before, but I had an eggplant to use and some goat cheese to use with it.
An Easy Healthy Family Meal
21 Day Fix - Eggplant Roll Ups
Ingredients
- 1 medium eggplant cut into 1/4 inch oblong pieces from end to end.
- 1 medium onion chopped
- 3 cloves of garlic minced or 1 tsp garlic power
- 1 cup of organic spinach chopped
- 1 cup of 2% cottage cheese
- 1 tsp basil
- 1 tsp oregano
- 1 tsp parsley
- 3 cups marinara sauce
- 4 tbs of goat cheese to sprinkle on top
- 2 tbs oil
- salt
Instructions
- Pre-heat to 450 degrees Fahrenheit and place middle rack in the oven.
- Take eggplant pieces and place on a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Salt the eggplant and set aside for 30 minutes.
- Roast in the oven for 12 minutes and baste with oil.
- Take the chopped onion, minced garlic and olive oil and place into a skillet to saute until both the garlic and onion become translucent and soft, do this while the eggplant is roasting.
- In another small mixing bowl add in the cottage cheese, chopped spinach, basil, oregano, parsley, sauteed garlic and onion to mix thoroughly.
- Take a 1/2 cup of marinara sauce and using a spoon spread evenly on the bottom of the 2 qt glass Pyrex casserole dish.
- Pat your eggplant strips dry and place 2 tablespoons full of the cottage cheese mixture into the top of the eggplant and roll up. Place the eggplant roll up into the dish with the seam facing down.
- Repeat this process until you have no more eggplant and cottage cheese.
- Take 2.5 cups left of the marinara sauce and spread over the top of the eggplant roll ups.
- Sprinkle the 4 tablespoons of goat cheese over the top of the roll ups and place in the oven.
- Cook for 20-25 minutes or until bubbly.
- serving = 1 eggplant medium sized eggplant rollup (some are smaller due to the end of the eggplant so the largest size you make I consider 1 serving)
- The 21 Day Fix containers = 1 green container, 1/2 red container, 1/2 blue container, 1/2 purple and 2 tsps
This recipe pairs nicely with a side salad and a piece of fresh fruit to give more nutritional value to your dinners. You can make it ahead of time as the next day the flavors were even better and you have enough left to take to lunch.
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this looks so good! I love eggplant… I pinned! 😉
Thanks for the pin Lauren!
🙂 Amee
loveeeee eggplant. I always have the hardest time cooking it into something delicious though–so this is great!
I love it too! Hope you enjoy it!
Did you make the marinara? Or purchase?
Hi Courtney,
I got an organic spaghetti sauce, but you could easily make yours as well. Amee
this looks delicious. I do have one question. When salting the eggplant how much salt should you use. I’ve tried to salt my eggplant in the past but it ended up being unbearably salty. Thanks 🙂
Hi Hannah,
I lightly salt them with very little as I have done exactly what you are saying. I tend to wipe them clean afterwards too if I got to much in one area.
This recipe was delicious, however I find the calculations to be off. There is no accounting for the marinara sauce which would count as a 1/4 purple for 1 role and 1/2 for 2 roles. I also added sautéed mushrooms and used ricotta cheese instead of cottage cheese.
This would be great as whole wheat lasagna or roll a cooked lasagna noodle with the eggplant for a carb.
Thanks for the yummy recipe!
Hi Jess,
Yes you are right I recently learned that sauce was considered a purple will go in and change that in my recipe. 🙂