Savory Sunday: Eggplant Parmesan Sliders

Guest post by Shelby Smith

    One of the easiest and best known recipes for eggplant is Eggplant Parmesan, but let’s put a small spin on it. Pretty much anything can be made into a slider, why not eggplant parmesan slider?

    This is a fun twist on a traditional entrée dish -- making it into a lunch option or a quick meal on the go. Eggplant by itself doesn’t have much taste, but it can be prepared several ways and absorb a lot of flavor.

Ingredients

• 1 medium eggplant.
• ½ cup of flour.
• ½ cup seasoned bread crumbs.
• 2 eggs scrambled.
• 2 tbsp. of Parmesan cheese.
• ¼ tsp. of salt and pepper.
• ½ cup tomato sauce fresh or jar.
• Packet of slider buns.
• ½ cup of oil.

Directions

1. Heat oil to medium high in a pot that is at least 4 inches tall.
2. Turn broiler on to high.
3. In two bowls place your flour and bread crumbs. Mix salt and pepper in the flour. In another bowl pour your scrambled eggs.
4. Slice eggplant into ½ inch thick slices and peel off the skin.
5. In an assembly line completely dread the eggplant slices in flour.
6. Coat the slices in egg then bread crumbs.
7. Fry each slice individually (depending on how wide your pot is) until golden brown.
8. When ready to serve, put each fried slice on a lined baking sheet and layer tomato sauce and Parmesan cheese on each piece. Broil until the cheese is melted.
9. Serve on slider buns with as much sauce or cheese as you want.

You can stack these with as much cheese as possible. The sliders should be crisp on the outside and buttery and soft on the inside. You could try baking the eggplant in the oven to save using too much oil.

You could even use this same recipe with zucchini and squash. Try serving this with light salad, like the arugula tomato and avocado salad I posted last week.

"Savory Sunday" is a new weekly blog series with seasonal recipes from the garden.

About the Author:

Shelby Smith is a senior double major in multi-platform journalism and film studies at the University of Maryland College Park. She was a sports copy-editor for a campus publication called Unwind Magazine and a writer at The Campus Current newspaper at Anne Arundel Community College.