Creamy Miso Eggplant Pasta

September 20, 2022

 

Playing with the naturally creamy texture of eggplant, this sauce packs an umami punch with a hint of miso and a fragrant base of onions and garlic. We love using eggplant instead of tomato as the base of this sauce, and it coats the noodles beautifully.

 

Ingredients

2 Local Roots graffiti (or regular purple) eggplant, medium to large
Local Roots Sfoglini pasta, ~1-½ cups (depending on the shape)
1 Local Roots onion
6-8 cloves garlic
1 tbsp olive oil
1 ½ tsp salt
2 tbsp white miso
⅓ cup dry white wine (or water/stock)

 

Directions

1. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil.
2. Remove the stem and end of the eggplant, then cube into ½ inch chunks. Finely dice the garlic and onions.
3. To a medium-high pan, drizzle in 1 tbsp of olive oil. Sear the eggplant cubes until golden brown on several sides. 
4. Add in the diced onion and cook until softened, sprinkling over 1 ½ tsp salt.
5. When the onions have softened, add in the diced garlic and cook 1-2 minutes until fragrant.
6. Stir in 2 tbsp of white miso and begin to break up the softened eggplant. At this point, add your pasta to the boiling water to cook 1-2 minutes from al dente. 
7. Some of the eggplant and miso will have stuck to the pan, so deglaze the pan and get all of the flavor off the bottom of the pan by pouring in ⅓ cup of white wine or water or stock (according to your preference). Continuously stir to dissolve the flavor stuck to the bottom of the pan and cook the liquid down until it becomes a sauce texture and the eggplant has broken down. Taste for seasoning and adjust to your preference.
8. Save one cup of pasta water in a bowl or a mug. When the pasta is 1 minute from being al dente, drain the remaining pasta water and add the pasta to the eggplant sauce. Stir together and allow the sauce to coat the pasta. If the sauce has thickened too much, add in some pasta water a splash at a time until each noodle is coated.
9. We garnished our pasta with curls of parmesan cheese, but feel free to skip this if you are vegan. Enjoy!

 

This recipe was created by Local Roots contributor Irena Huang / @irena__huang

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