Parmigiana is the dish you tell yourself you can’t make on a weekday because you imagine hours at the stove. Wrong. With 30 minutes of active prep and the oven doing the work, it’s totally doable on a tired Tuesday evening. And the result—melting layers of eggplant, tomato sauce and melted cheese—is well worth the effort.
What comes out of the oven has that golden, almost brown color on the edges where the cheese has caramelized against the dish. The smell rising is of concentrated tomatoes, warm basil, bubbling cheese. When you plunge the spatula to serve, the layers hold for a few seconds before gently collapsing—the eggplant is so tender it yields to the slightest touch. That’s exactly what you want.
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