This eggplant grilled cheese is the perfect sandwich to kick off the fall. It is filled with these beautiful beefsteak tomatoes, graffiti eggplants, cashew pesto, mozzarella, and freshly grated parmesan neatly placed between two slices of this homemade whole wheat sourdough bread.
Marisa has been tinkering with different sourdough recipes since the beginning of the pandemic. Her bread-baking skills were the inspiration for this sandwich. Then we happened upon these eggplants at the farmer's market this weekend and the rest is history.
These eggplants are called graffiti eggplants and they are similar to Italian Eggplants, which are hard to come by in the South. We are located down in the land of the pines, as Darius Rucker says, and finding some of our Italian staples like Eggplant and Broccoli Rabe can be close to impossible. These graffiti eggplants are just a little sweeter than the eggplants you normally buy at the supermarket.
Grilled cheese is always an easy comfort food and great on a football Sunday. My mom used to make the best grilled cheeses with American cheese for us during the summers, but I like to kick it up a notch with this eggplant grilled cheese now.
Ingredients for Eggplant Grilled Cheese
- Sourdough Bread
- 3 Beefsteak Tomato - the riper the better
- ½ cup Pesto
- 4 tbsp Butter
- 1 Small Eggplant
- 1.5 cups Mozzarella Cheese
- ½ cup parmesan
- Salt and Pepper
- 1 Handful Basil
Where to Start with this Grilled Cheese
Whenever I'm making an eggplant recipe, I always start by salting the eggplant out of habit. But to be honest, this is only necessary when you will be frying eggplant. For this recipe start by slicing up your eggplant into half-inch slices.
Preheat your oven to 425 degrees. You'll want to preheat the grill to medium-high heat as well. Then slice your tomatoes into nice thick slices for roasting. Place onto a baking sheet with parchment paper and season with extra virgin olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic powder.
Roast for 20 minutes. The tomatoes should be a deep red color when finished. I suggest adding more time if they don't look like this! You can see which tomato was the ripest here. Those are the tomatoes Marisa got on her sandwich, of course.
Season your eggplant with the same seasoning you used for your tomatoes and now you're going to bring them outside to grill. They should cook relatively quickly, 3-5 minutes on each side or until you see a nice sear on each side.
Time to Assemble the Eggplant Caprese Grilled Cheese Masterpiece
In a medium frying pan, place 1 tablespoon of butter and bring to medium heat. Butter one side of each slice of your sourdough for good measure. We're not here to save the arteries today. Put parmesan and mozzarella on the bread and top with eggplant, pesto, tomatoes, basil, and then more of both kinds of cheese.
You'll press the sandwich down onto the frying pan and cook until golden brown, about 4-5 minutes on each side. You'll want to add another tablespoon of butter before placing the other side on the frying pan.
You could serve this with tomato soup but that would be a bit gratuitous, don't ya think? No, I just went right ahead and dipped mine in some more pesto, while I watched the first Thursday Night Football Game as Marisa got home from the hospital. The perfect ending for a day on her feet, a comfort food like no other. The eggplant caprese grilled cheese.
If you're looking to check out some of our other sandwich recipes check out these here!
The Italian Breakfast Sandwich
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3 Reasons You Should Eat More Eggplant
It's High in Fiber
The high fiber in eggplant helps slow down the rate of sugar absorption throughout the digestion process. This can help decrease the risk of diabetes when we eat in a healthier style than the one we are enjoying with this recipe. This is a comfort food above. But we always make extra grilled eggplant, because it's a great healthy snack for during the week and our son loves it too.
High in Polyphenols
A natural plant chemical that may help improve the digestion of sugar and decrease the risk of diabetes. Another great source of polyphenols is black beans.
A Low-Calorie Vegetable
Eggplant is a guilt-free food most of the time. Especially if it's grilled. If you go ahead and make a fried eggplant parm sandwich, well, you may carry some guilt with that. It's not a free pass here. But it's such a versatile food and I love to snack on some grilled eggplant, instead of eating chips or something.
📖 Recipe
Eggplant Caprese Grilled Cheese
Ingredients
- Sourdough Bread Sourdough is preferred for this recipe, but you can use any kind of bread you'd like!
- 3 Beefsteak Tomato The riper the better
- ½ cup Pesto
- 4 tablespoon Butter
- 1 Small Eggplant
- 1.5 cup Mozzarella Cheese
- ½ cup parmesan
- Salt and Pepper
- 1 Handful Basil
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 425 degrees and Grill to Medium High heat. You can bake your eggplant on a separate pan from tomatoes if you'd like, but I prefer grilled eggplant.
- Slice your eggplant into ½ inch slices.
- Slice your tomatoes and place on a baking pan with parchment paper. Dress generously with Extra Virgin Olive oil, salt and Pepper
- Roast tomatoes for 20 minutes in oven.
- Season eggplant in Extra Virgin Olive Oil and pepper and grill both sides for 5 minutes.
- Slice your sourdough bread and butter one side of each of the bread. In a frying pan on the stove melt 1 tablespoon of butter on medium heat.
- Pile up your sandwich with bread butter side face down, then parmesan and mozzarella, tomatoes, eggplant, pesto, basil leaves, and the remaining cheese. Close the sandwich and press down on to frying pan and fry for 4-5 minutes or until golden brown. Flip and fry other side.
- Slice open and enjoy this beautiful Eggplant Caprese Grilled Cheese!
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