I love eggplant. I would honestly eat every night for dinner, so I’m often finding some unique ways to eat it, like this Sausage Stuffed Eggplant recipe.

It’s so good.

The recipe makes two eggplants, which is four eggplant halves. If I’m making this for dinner for me and Pete, I actually make one eggplant, and we each have a half.

Then, I save the rest of the sausage stuffing and mix it into pasta for dinner the next day.

Sausage Stuffed Eggplant

Sausage Stuffed Eggplant Ingredients:

• 16 oz. sausage roll
• 1/4 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
• 1/4 cup marinara sauce
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1 small onion
• Onion powder
• 8 oz. mushrooms
• 2 eggplants
• Olive oil
• salt
• pepper

How To Make Sausage Stuffed Eggplant:

Preheat your oven to 350.

Cut the eggplant in half and hollow out the eggplant.

Personally, I use a melon baller to scoop out the inside of the eggplant. It’s a lot easier that way than using a spoon.

Make sure you don’t scoop out all of the flesh. Leave about 1/4 of an inch of flesh around the sides and bottom of the eggplant to form “eggplant boats.”

Rough chop the eggplant that you scooped out.

Fill a bowl with salted water and let the eggplant (the boats and chopped eggplant) sit in the water for about 30 minutes.

Remove the eggplant and pat it dry.

Put the eggplant boats, cut side up, in a foil-lined cookie sheet. Sprinkle with olive oil, salt, and pepper.

Bake the eggplant for 15 minutes.

While that’s cooking, chop the onion and garlic. Sprinkle with onion powder. Pour a little olive oil in a pan and cook the onion and garlic in it, about two minutes.

Chop the mushrooms and add them to the pan with the onions. Sauté about two minutes.

Add in the chopped eggplant and cook about five minutes.

Add in the sausage. Break up the sausage into small crumbles and cook until the sausage is completely cooked through, about 10 minutes.

Stir in the marinara sauce.

Stuff the sausage mixture into the eggplant boats.

Bake for 30 minutes.

Top with the shredded cheese. Bake another 10 minutes, until the cheese is melted.

Serve warm.

What kind of sausage should you use in these stuffed eggplants?

You can use any type of sausage in sausage stuffed eggplants. Personally, I prefer hot Italian pork sausage, but you can use mild if you prefer.

I would just really recommend that you use the sausage roll rather than sausage links for this. You’ll want to break the sausage into crumbled and sausage rolls are easier to break apart.

If you use sausage links, use a knife to cut the casings off before adding the sausage to the pan.

Don’t use Polish sausage (aka kielbasa) for this. You won’t be able to make crumbles from that sausage.

Do you have to soak the eggplant in water?

Eggplant can be really bitter. One of the easiest ways to pull out the bitterness is to soak eggplant in water that has a teaspoon of salt added. Let it soak for 30 minutes and pat it dry.

If you can’t soak the eggplant for 30 minutes, you can sweat out the bitterness and extra moisture in the eggplant. Just generously sprinkle some salt on the eggplant and let it sit. Pat dry any water that comes out.

You don’t have to do both of these. You can either soak the eggplant or salt the eggplant. Take your choice. But whatever you do, don’t just cut the eggplant and cook it. It’ll end up tasting really bitter and no amount of sausage or seasoning will overpower that.

Can you eat the skin of Sausage Stuffed Eggplant?

Eggplant skin is edible, but the skin on this sausage stuffed eggplant is so tough, so I recommend against eating it.

You don’t want to peel the eggplant, though. You want the skin to stay on to keep these sausage stuffed eggplant boats intact.

When you’re eating these, use a fork to scrape all the flesh of the eggplant away from the skin, leaving only the skin behind.

What can you serve with Sausage Stuffed Eggplant?

Sausage Stuffed Eggplant is a meal in itself, but we always serve it with a simple side salad. You could also serve it with garlic bread or just toasted Italian bread.

How can you store leftover Sausage Stuffed Eggplant?

If you have any leftover sausage stuffed eggplant, wrap it in foil and keep it in the fridge. When you’re storing it, make sure that you are leaving the eggplant boat on the bottom and the stuffed part on top.

You can keep sausage stuffed eggplant in the fridge for four or so days.

If you have any leftover stuffing, put it in an air-tight container and keep it in the fridge for up to four days.

How do you reheat Sausage Stuffed Eggplant?

When you want to reheat sausage stuffed eggplant, open the foil you stored it in and place the eggplant boats on a cookie sheet. Bake them in an oven at 350 for about 15 minutes until they’re warm.

You could microwave the stuffed eggplant, but it will taste a little soggy and the eggplant won’t pull away from the skin as easily as it does when it’s reheated in the oven.

Can you make a vegetarian Sausage Stuffed Eggplant?

That feels like a trick question. These eggplants are stuffed with sausage and sausage isn’t vegetarian.

But, many vegetarian- and vegan-friendly brands make plant-based meatless crumbles. If you used that in place of the sausage, and kept everything else the same, then you could make a vegetarian version of these.

Want more eggplant recipes?

Like I said above, I really like eggplant. So we have a few eggplant recipes, and recipes using eggplant, on Drugstore Divas. If you want to check out some of my favorites, those are below:

• Pasta Alla Norma (Sicilian eggplant and tomato pasta)
• Baked Eggplant Meatball Parmesan
• Breaded Eggplant Parm Bites
• Traditional Eggplant Parmesan
• Baked Eggplant Parmesan
• Sautéed Eggplant With Panko
• Vegetarian Couscous (with eggplant)
• Chicken and Eggplant Teriyaki
• Grilled Eggplant, Prosciutto and Mozzarella Roll Ups