Roasted Eggplant, Tomato and Zucchini Pasta is a fresh and light summer dish. This easy pasta recipe is the perfect way to use those sweet tomatoes ripening on your kitchen counter. You’ll be making it all summer long!
The temperatures are scorching and it’s time for easy summer recipes. It’s hard to think about turning on the oven when your kitchen is as hot as one. But this super easy roasted tomato, eggplant and zucchini pasta is a dish you’ll love all summer long!
There is a possibility that you aren’t craving pasta (how is that possible?) and these roasted vegetables would go perfectly with your favorite whole grain (we also love it with cooked farrow). It’s delicious to fill an omelet. If you want pasta but are gluten-free, use your favorite gluten-free pasta. We used penne for this recipe but it’s also great with fusili or farfalle.
You can find so many eggplant recipes all over Southern Italy. Eggplant is baked, stuffed, or fried. There are recipes where it is preserved olive oil (my Calabrian mother-in-law makes them every year). My mom smokes them and puree’s them and makes incredible dips. Mom also makes the best eggplant Parmigiana.
This is a recipe my Sicilian father used to make often and it truly is simple to put together. He was always creating different recipe with eggplant and this is one that he made without using an recipe. Like many Italian recipes, he just played around with the flavors until he got it to perfection. I’ve neglected my #projectSicilia recipe collection for a while.
How to make Roasted Eggplant, Tomato and Zucchini Pasta?
The first step is to roast the vegetables. You could really use whatever tomato variety you like for this super easy pasta dish. I like to choose a deep red vine ripened tomato if I can find them. Even plum tomatoes work great, mini San Marzano’s, and if you were lucky to get pomodori di pachino IGP (from Sicily). As long as they are sweet and ripe, the pasta will turn out delicious! Try to chop all the vegetables in the same size if possible so they will cook evenly.
I like the eggplant to get a little crispy. You could roast them to whatever consistency you desire. Slow roasting the tomatoes alone on a low temp like 200 F for a couple of hours will make the sweetest and juiciest tomato.
If you do end up just slow roasting the tomatoes alone, they are perfect to add to so many dishes when you are meal prepping. These tomatoes are wonderful with gains, salads and soups.
Be sure to use the best extra-virgin olive oil you can get. It truly adds to the flavor of this dish and so many other dishes.
Fresh basil from the garden is lovely. It’s one of the main herbs we always have growing here. With our extreme hot temps in the summer and all the rain, they thrive and blossom all summer long. I would not suggest dried basil as the flavor would never be the same.
You could finish off the dish with some freshly grated earthy pecorino Romano. Another idea is to give it a few cracks of fresh pepper and have it vegan, as we enjoyed it.
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Roasted Eggplant, Tomato and Zucchini Pasta
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup plus 2 Tbs. extra-virgin olive oil; more for drizzling
- 1 ¾ pounds eggplant cut into 1-inch cubes (I used Japanese)
- 5 Roma (plutomatoes or more to taste, cut into 1 1/2-inch cubes
- 2 zucchini cut into 1 1/2-inch cubes
- 1 Tablespoon fresh rosemary chopped (not the stems)
- 1 pinch salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
- 1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes chopped
- 3/4 lb. dried penne rigate
- 1 cup roughly chopped fresh basil
Instructions
- Heat oven to 425 degrees. Spread out the cubed pieces of eggplant, zucchini and tomatoes on a rimmed baking sheet lined with aluminum foil. Toss with 1/4 cup of the olive oil, fresh rosemary, and season well with salt. Roast, turning everything a couple of times, until eggplant and are very soft and deeply golden brown, 30-35 minutes.
- Meanwhile, bring a large post of salted water to boil. Cook pasta until al dente, according to package directions. Before draining, reserve about 1/2 cup pasta cooking water. Transfer the cooked pasta to a large serving bowl.
- Add the chopped sun dried tomatoes and a little splash of pasta cooking water and toss until the pasta is coated.
- Add the roasted vegetables to the bowl and toss to combine. Sprinkle with the chopped basil and season with additional salt and pepper. Drizzle on a little bit more olive oil, if needed.
Notes
MAKE IT GLUTEN FREE: Substitute gluten-free pasta for the whole-grain spaghetti. All images and text ©Savoring Italy. Please do not use my images without prior permission. If using my posts in collections and features, please link back to this post for the recipe.
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