Baked Eggplant Parmesan With Turkey Meat, Soy Mozzarella Cheese

This recipe comes from my husband's Aunt Annalee down in St. Louis. My hubby is lactose intolerant, so I tried this dish with soy mozzarella cheese and it's delicious. We make it for friends all the time and they can't tell it's soy either. We like it with turkey meat, but you can try soy crumbles as well if you are vegetarian. It's a very filling and healthy meal. Enjoy!

• Ready In: 1 hr 10 mins
• Serves: 4-6

Ingredients

• 2  tablespoons olive oil
• 1⁄2 cup  chopped onion
• 1  garlic clove
• 1⁄2 lb ground turkey
• 1 (2 lb) can Italian tomatoes
• 1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste
• 2  teaspoons dried oregano
• 1  teaspoon dried basil
• 1 1⁄2 teaspoons salt
• 1⁄3 teaspoon pepper
• 1  tablespoon brown sugar
• 1  large eggplant
• 2  eggs, slightly beaten
• 1⁄2 cup  Italian seasoned breadcrumbs
• 1 (8 ounce) package mozzarella cheese (try soy cheese, if you want)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. In pie plate, combine eggs and 1 TBSP water. In another pie plate, place bread crumbs. Dip eggplant in egg mixture coating well. Dip into bread crumbs. Place on greased (I use olive oil spray) baking sheet. Bake eggplant for 20 minutes, turn once.
3. In large skillet w/ olive oil, saute onion, garlic, and turkey meat for about 5 minutes. Add tomatoes, tomato paste, oregano, basil, salt, pepper, and sugar. Bring to boil. Stir with wooden spoon.
4. Reduce heat, simmer, covered and stirring occasionally for 45 minutes.
5. Arrange half of eggplant slices in bottom of baking dish.
6. Cover bottom of baking dish with some of the sauce. Arrange the eggplant so it covers bottom of baking dish. Sprinkle cheese and pour sauce so it covers a thin layer over eggplant. Arrange the rest of the eggplant and repeat those steps. The top layer should be the mozzarella cheese.
7. Bake, uncovered 25 minutes.