Ratatouille

Ingredients

• 1 Eggplant, cut into 1-inch cubes
• 2 Zucchini, cut into half-moons
• 2 Red bell pepper, cut into strips
• 1 Yellow onion, sliced
• 6 Roma tomatoes, chopped
• 5 cloves Garlic, sliced
• 5 tbsp Extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 Bay leaves
• 4 sprigs Fresh thyme
• 1 ¼ tsp Kosher salt
• ¾ cup Fresh basil, torn
• 1 tsp Red wine vinegar
• 1 can Cannellini beans, canned no-salt-added, drained

Method

1. Brown the eggplant in 2 tablespoons of oil over medium-high until golden and collapsing, 8 minutes. Move it to a bowl. Eggplant drinks oil at first and then gives it back — resist adding more.
2. Brown the zucchini in the same pan, 5 minutes, and add it to the bowl. Then the peppers, 6 minutes, into the bowl as well.
3. Cook the onion in the remaining oil over medium until soft, 8 minutes. Add the garlic for a minute.
4. Add the tomatoes, bay leaf, thyme and salt. Simmer 15 minutes until the tomatoes break down into a sauce.
5. Return all the vegetables and simmer, uncovered, 10 minutes more — long enough to marry, short enough that each vegetable is still itself. Stir the white beans in for the last five. Beans are not traditional in Provence, where this is a vegetable side; they are what turn it into a dinner.
6. Off the heat: the basil, the teaspoon of vinegar, and a last tablespoon of good oil. Serve warm or at room temperature, with bread.

Notes

✨ The restaurant touch

Cooking each vegetable alone is forty minutes instead of twenty. It is also the entire difference between ratatouille and vegetable stew.

🧒 For the kids

Serve it over polenta or with a fried egg on top and it stops being 'vegetables' and starts being dinner.

🌿 From the garden

This is the August garden in one pot — eggplant, zucchini, peppers, tomatoes, basil and thyme, all at once.

🥡 Leftovers

Genuinely better on day two and three. Keeps 5 days, freezes 3 months. Excellent cold on toast with an egg.

Per serving

Computed from USDA FoodData Central values. A planning tool, not medical advice.