This crispy Italian-style pizza with eggplant is topped with fresh tomato sauce,mozzarella, delicious soft slices of eggplant, parmesan and pops of fresh basil leaves. Guess what? It looks and tastes AMAZING!The recipe yields 2 large portions or 6 slices.
Prep Time15 minutesmins
Cook Time15 minutesmins
proofing time1 minutemin
Total Time1 hourhr30 minutesmins
Servings: 2
Calories: 630kcal
Author: Katia
Ingredients
PIzza dough
1easy pizza dough(or your fav dough)
Eggplant topping
1eggplant (aubergine) skin on, cut into thin slices
½ or 1 Tablespoonextra virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzle
⅓cuppizza sauce or your favourite tomato sauce
5 oz(150 grams)fresh mozzarella in water (or from ½ to ⅓ cup shredded firm mozzarella)
3 Tablespoonsparmesan cheese, grated (optional)
10basil leaves
Instructions
Pizza dough
Follow the easy no-knead pizza recipe through step 5, including shaping the pizza and preheating the oven.
Eggplant topping
Cook the eggplant: while the pizza dough is resting, cut the eggplant/aubergine crosswise into thin slices (about 6mm or 1/4 inch thick, even a bit thicker is fine).
Grease a non-stick pan with ½ tablespoon of olive oil and place it over medium heat. Once hot, add the slices of eggplant and cook for 2-3 minutes, before flipping and cooking for a further 3 minutes or until soft and slightly golden. You might need more olive oil during the cooking time, it depends on the type of frying pan you use. Keep an eye on it ad grease again if needed. Place the pan fried eggplant slices on a large plate covered with kitchen paper.
Prepare the cheese: If use fresh mozzarella cheese in water, cut it into ½ inch thick pieces. If it’s very watery, you may want to dab the mozzarella with the paper towel to remove excess moisture.
Shape the dough: when the dough is ready follow step 5, place the dough on a parchment paper sheet and starting from the center, gently press it out with your fingers until you get approx a 9×13 inch pizza. Then gently place the dough onto a pizza peel or onto the back of a rimmed baking sheet.
Add the topping: top the dough evenly with pizza sauce (or your favorite tomato sauce) mozzarella cheese, and eggplant slices. Finish with parmesan cheese, sprinkle some fine salt on top, add a little drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and a few shredded basil leaves (save the rest for garnish at the end).
Bake the pizza: make sure the oven is hot and use the pizza peel to carefully transfer the pizza onto the preheated pizza stone. Bake the pizza until the cheese and crust are nicely browned, approx 15 minutes. Each oven is different, keep an eye on it (e.g. in a forced fan oven it will take about 8-10 minutes).
Serve: allow the pizza to cool for a minute or two before adding the rest of the fresh basil leaves (whole leaves, or lightly torn) and again a final drizzle of extra virgin olive oil if desired. Slice and serve immediately.
Notes
What to use instead of a pizza stone? Each oven usually has a rimmed baking sheet or a large cookie sheet that you can simply invert it and place on the lowest shelf of your oven before you preheat it. When the baking sheet is right-side up, taking the pizza in and out of the oven will be easier and the preheated baking sheet will make a nice and crisp pizza crustPizza with eggplant leftovers: Cover leftover pizza tightly and store in the refrigerator up to 1 day or freeze up to 3 months. Thaw and reheat in the oven the frozen pizza leftovers until nice and crispy.Nutrition facts: Please note that the nutrition values are based on an online nutrition calculator. It’s an estimate only and it should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.