Spiced tomato sauce with aubergine and white beans – topped with cottage cheese and served with crusty bread.
Spiced tomato sauce with aubergine, white beans and cottage cheese – a really easy, rich and genuinely delicious vegetarian dish with plenty of flavour. It is a kind of shakshuka-inspired dish with creamy butter beans, aubergine and a rich spiced tomato sauce, topped with cottage cheese and served with good crusty bread. Perfect for breakfast, lunch or dinner.
I start by frying the aubergine in a pan until it takes on a little colour and turns lovely and tender. Then I add onion, garlic, spices, tomato purée and chopped tomatoes and let it all simmer together for about 15 minutes. That gives a wonderfully rich tomato sauce with plenty of flavour, and it takes very little effort.
Finally I stir the white beans into the tomato sauce and let them heat through properly. I have used butter beans, which have the softest, creamiest texture, but you can easily use other white beans such as cannellini beans.
You can adjust the amount of beans depending on how you are serving the dish. For breakfast or a light lunch a single tin is enough, while I would recommend two tins if the dish is to be served as a filling evening meal.
I top the hot tomato sauce with cottage cheese, which gives a mild, creamy contrast to the spiced sauce. Serve with good crusty bread to scoop up the tomato sauce, beans and cottage cheese. It tastes simply wonderful.
A really easy dish of white beans in tomato sauce that is rich, filling and full of flavour. Perfect when dinner needs to be simple but certainly not boring – and just as good for a slow weekend morning or a leisurely lunch.
Spiced tomato sauce with white beans and cottage cheese
Ingredients
- 1 large aubergine, diced
- 1 onion, roughly chopped
- 4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
- 2 tsp paprika
- 1 1/2 tsp ground cumin
- 1 1/2 tsp ground coriander
- 1/2 tsp chilli powder
- 4 tbsp tomato purée
- 2 tins chopped tomatoes or polpa (finely chopped tomatoes)
- 1 tin white beans, drained
- 1 handful parsley, chopped
- Olive oil
- Salt and freshly ground pepper
To serve
- 200 g cottage cheese
- Toasted bread and chopped parsley
Method
- Heat a good glug of oil in a frying pan and fry the aubergine for about 5 minutes. Season with salt and freshly ground pepper.
- Add the onion and garlic and fry until the onion is translucent.
- Sprinkle over the spices, add the tomato purée, stir well and cook through for a couple of minutes.
- Pour in the tomatoes and let the sauce simmer over a medium heat for about 15 minutes, or until the sauce thickens.
- Add the drained beans and heat the dish through thoroughly.
- If serving the dish for dinner, I would recommend 2 tins of beans.
- Stir in the parsley and season to taste with salt and freshly ground pepper.
- Serve topped with cottage cheese, a drizzle of olive oil, chopped parsley and a slice of toasted bread.
Nutrition
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