We are always surprised when we meet someone who says they don’t like Italian sausage. We cannot understand why, and we always say – maybe we need to cook it for you! We have probably had sausage in every possible form, and we can’t decide if our love of Italian sausage is something we were born with or a taste we acquired. But we love it, and we eat a lot of it! We bake it in bread, toss it over pasta, put it on pizza, and grill it all year long. Everywhere we have lived, we make sure we find a great deli to get our sausage.
Sausage can take meals from good to great. Here we have added it to ricotta stuffed eggplant involtini, and this truly a great meal. This meal looks daunting but it is NOT! In fact, one of the reasons we love it so much is that it goes together very quickly and the result is a meal that is incredibly satisfying. Do you have a mandolin? If not, consider getting one – it makes this meal prep a snap, and it’s so fun to use!
P.S. Whole Foods’ Italian sausage (mild and hot) is our go-to sausage. It is incredible and you will not be disappointed.
italian sausage & eggplant involtini
- Prep Time: 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour
- Yield: 6-8 servings
- Category: Main Dishes
- Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients
- 2 medium eggplant
- 1 28 oz can crushed toms
- 3 cloves garlic
- 1 lb hot Italian Sausage
- 1 lb mild Italian Sausage
- 2 containers ricotta cheese (either whole or part skim)
- 2 eggs
- ½ cup parmesan cheese, grated
- ¼ cup parsley
- 1 teaspoon salt
- fresh basil (15-20 leaves)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
- Slice eggplant, preferably with mandolin. Place on parchment lined cookie sheet, drizzle with olive oil and sea salt and bake in oven until soft, about 20 mins. Remove from oven and let cool.
- Brown the sausage while the eggplant is cooking.
- Make the sauce. Heat olive oil in pan, add garlic. Saute until fragrant. Add tomatoes. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to simmer.
- Make the filling. Mix ricotta, eggs, parmesan, parsley and salt.
- Place approximately ½ cup of sauce in pan
- Fill the eggplant. Place 2-3 T of the ricotta mixture on the widest part of the eggplant. Top with a basil leaf and roll. Place in pan. Repeat with remaining eggplant slices.
- Once all is complete, sprinkle sausage over involtini. Top with remaining sauce.
- Bake until bubbly, approx. 20 minutes