Authentic Sicilian Pasta alla Norma | Eggplant & Tomato Pasta

Meet a Sicilian classic: Pasta alla Norma

This iconic eggplant and tomato pasta from Sicily is rustic, hearty, and packed with Mediterranean flavors. Roasted eggplant melts into a rich, herb-infused tomato sauce, then gets tossed with pasta and topped with fresh basil and cheese. Simple ingredients, but the result is restaurant-quality comfort food!

In this video, I’ll show you how to make this timeless Italian recipe step by step, so you can bring a little taste of Sicily to your own kitchen.

📝 Full Recipe on GypsyPlate: https://gypsyplate.com/pasta-alla-norma/

INGREDIENTS:
2 eggplants, partially peeled and cut into half inch rounds
Extra virgin olive oil
5 garlic cloves
1 tsp red chili flakes
28oz canned tomatoes
¼ cup fresh basil, cut into strips (plus more for garnish)
1.5 tsp dried Italian seasoning
8oz rigatoni (or your pasta of choice)
salt, to taste
pepper, to taste
sugar, if needed
ricotta salata (or parmesan), for garnish

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[Music] Pasta Alanorarma is a famous Sicilian dish with a chunky herb infused eggplant and tomato sauce, and it’s just too good. It’s a light meatless pasta meal, yet the firm, buttery eggplant gives it heartiness that will keep you in your happy place. This one definitely deserve a spot in your rotation. You know, we are big eggplant fans here at Gypsy Plate. From kaponata and mutabul to decanded and dishes like eggplant parmesan and musaka, you will find plenty of eggplant recipes on our website gypsyplate.com. Now, this pasta is a dish I’ve been wanting to cook for you for a while. It’s cozy, comforting, and full of flavors. Even though it’s made with simple ingredients, it has that fancy Italian restaurant vibe, making it perfect for serving guests. The big chunks of eggplants gives the dish a hearty almost meaty texture. So whether you’re a vegetarian or a meat eater, I promise everybody’s going to love it. It’s not exactly lowal thanks to the generous amount of olive oil, but it’s super healthy meal and definitely Mediterranean diet worthy. And the best part, it makes for amazing leftovers. So double up the recipe for some tasty Italian meal prep. This is Alquina with gypsyplate.com and let’s talk about this cracking authentic Italian pasta. Pasta Alanorarma hey pasta Alanora is a Sicilian pasta dish with tomato sauce and eggplant. Originally, it was called pasta conlay melanzan meaning pasta with eggplant. It was later renamed in honor of famous Italian opera Norma. It is a simple dish that is delicately seasoned with herbs in order to allow the eggplant to shine through. All right, let’s talk about the ingredients we are going to use today. First up, the eggplants. They are the star of the show, bringing that hearty texture and flavor. Now, we are also going to use extra virgin olive oil. Make sure it’s a good quality since we are using quite a bit of it. For the tomatoes, I’m going to use the canned cherry tomatoes. That’s that’s my recent discovery. These tomatoes are smaller and sweeter, which gives the sauce that nice rich, slightly tangy flavor. The texture is also spot on here because they break down beautifully when simmered, creating nice chunky sauce that really clings to the pasta. But if you can’t find that, you can always use whole canned tomatoes and just break them with your hands. We’ll be also adding some fresh basil and dried Italian seasoning for those classic Italian flavors. Then for some extra punch, we have got garlic, red chili flakes, salt, and pepper. For the pasta, today I’m using rietoni today, but spaghetti is also very common choice for this dish. Finally, for the cheese, ricata salada is traditional, but it can be a little tricky to find that here in states. So, if you can’t find it, parmesan works just as well. That’s all the ingredients you’ll be needing for this delicious pasta on. They are all listed with exact amounts in the description below. So, let’s get cooking. Line your baking sheet with parchment paper. You would need two baking sheets as we are using lots of eggplants for this recipe. Cut the eggplants into 1/2 in rounds and place them on your baking sheet. Well, you need to generously apply this extra virgin olive oil everywhere because they kind of get absorbed into these eggplants. So, you need a lot of this extra virgin olive oil to brush it on both sides. Then, I’m seasoning my eggplants generously with salt and pepper on both sides. My oven is preheating at 425°. I’m just going to roast these eggplants for about 35 to 40 minutes until they’re nice and soft. Halfway through, I’m going to flip them over and continue to roast. And a total roast time would be about 35 to 40 minutes. But again, it depends from oven to oven. So, you know, just roast them till they are soft and tender and start looking golden brown. [Music] While our eggplants are roasting, let’s make that delicious sauce for this recipe. Heat about 3 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil in a large Dutch oven skillet over mediumigh heat and saute garlic and red chili flakes. I love to use lots of garlic and I like that little heat coming up from red chili flakes in the end. [Music] Then goes my canned cherry tomatoes along with the juices. I’m going to use two cans of these cherry tomatoes and mix it well. Then I’m going to season it with some salt and pepper. [Music] I like to use fresh basil in this recipe. I cut them into thin stripes and I use plenty of it. Then goes my Italian seasoning and mix everything well. [Music] Now I’m going to just simmer this sauce for 20 25 minutes till all those tomatoes are a little just broken up and the sauce is nice and thick. Then I’m going to taste it. If it’s kind of a little acidic, I’m going to add some sugar into it. So it balances the acidity of the sauce. But if your tomatoes are sweet, just skip it and just leave it just like that. Time to boil some pasta. Bring water to rolling boil and add generous amount of salt and then add your riatonyi. Stir well and let it boil to alante according to the direction on the package. [Music] Reserve some pasta water for later before draining. I ended up using about/4 cup of this pasta water later. Coming back to the sauce. The sauce is looking nice and thick. Those tomatoes are blustered and cooked perfectly. And my sauce has a chunky consistency. And my eggplants just came out of the oven. They are looking very nice. They are golden brown all over. They’re kind of a little delicate to handle, so be careful when you’re adding them to the sauce, but they’re looking perfect to me. Now, all you need to do is finish the dish. Add roasted eggplants to the tomato sauce. Now, I kept the skin on this time because I don’t mind the skin in my pasta, but you don’t like the skin. Simply peel the skin off your eggplants before cutting them. Mix eggplants gently with the sauce so not to break up the chunks too much. Add the reserve pasta water and mix well. Add in your pasta and gently mix everything together. [Music] That’s looking gorgeous. Sprinkle some more fresh basil and it is ready to serve. Serve your pasta alanora in some pretty looking serving platter and then top it up with some fresh parmesan cheese. So there you go. One more restaurant quality Italian dish for you to enjoy. This is a great company meal and you can even serve it to vegetarian guests. It’s so good you’d be craving pasta alanorarma again and again. We’ll be cooking lots and lots of food for you. So keep on coming back to my kitchen. You’re coming back into my kitchen grows my channel. It means a lot to us. [Music] So, here we are again taste tasting with my son Noah. Hey, Noah. Hey, Mommy. What is that pasta with cherry tomatoes and that green stuff and cheese and eggplant and the pasta? Noah, this is an Italian dish called pasta alanora. Pasta alanora. Uh-huh. Elanora sounds like a girl name like in Italy. Yeah, that is this pasta is dedicated to someone called Norma. Okay. You want to try it? Sure. Sure. [Music] M. So good. Do you like Pastel Norma? Yes. Yeah. [Music] It’s good. Yeah, it’s good. The rating is it’s good again. It’s good again. That’s a good news. So, that’s for dinner tonight. What do you have to say to my subscribers? Don’t forget to subscribe, like, hit the join button down below, hit the bell button. Bye bye.