I cut the eggplant into cubes and just added it to the pot along with tomatoes and other seasonings and voila! I was done…
…except for the cooking of the pasta. Sometimes I cook the pasta in the Instant Pot too, but lately I seem to have trouble with getting perfect pasta …and my guess is that it’s probably because I was cooking gluten-free pasta. I think the better outcome has been with wheat pasta. (If anyone has any helpful hints on cooking gluten-free pasta in the InstantPot, please let me know. Thanks in advance.)
Back to the sauce..I cooked the eggplant until it was mushy. I liked it best this way because it was easy to combine with the tomatoes. The mixture of these two vegetables are superb. Yet, I call this a marinara because it’s very light vs. being more dense and doesn’t have any tomato paste which would make the sauce thicker.
This recipe makes about 2 – 3 servings. You can easily double it.
Ingredients:
1 small eggplant
1 small can of diced tomatoes
1/2 cup diced onions
1/8 cup of chopped bell peppers (your choice)
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 to 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp or so of dried herbs (basil, oregano, Italian herb mix,
spinach to stir into pot after cooking or directly onto the plate (I prefer fresh)
Instant Pot Directions:
- Put all ingredients into the inner pot.
- Press manual, then adjust settings to 6 minutes.
- Allow natural release (if you have enough time to wait)
- Adjust seasonings
- Stir in spinach (optional)
- Cook onion and garlic on low heat until soft. I prefer using water to steam the vegetables, so that I don’t have to add oils to cook with.
- Add eggplant and a little salt to help soften, then cook about 5 minutes while stirring frequently.
- Add diced tomatoes and remaining seasonings. Cook, covered over low heat until everything is very soft and (I prefer) mushy. Make sure your pan isn’t too high and use a small burner so the sauce doesn’t burn. This step may take about 10 more minutes.
- Adjust seasonings
- Stir in spinach (optional).
