Step-by-step recipe for Greek moussaka with eggplant and minced meat. Bulgarian moussaka: recipe without eggplant and with eggplant Other moussaka recipes

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Moussaka is a popular dish in Greek cuisine. The dish is high in calories and incredibly tasty, served in every Greek restaurant.

Moussaka is a casserole of vegetables, primarily eggplant, and meat with béchamel sauce. The moussaka recipe is known in the cuisine of many countries, but Greek moussaka is the most delicious.

There are many varieties of eggplant and meat casserole, and there is always room for your own culinary and taste preferences. After all, a wonderful cap of French bechamel sauce was added to the Greek moussaka - and the taste of the dish only benefited! With traditional Greek yogurt instead of sauce, moussaka is just as wonderful.

Homemade moussaka recipe

The recipe includes the basic components of Greek moussaka (eggplant, meat, bechamel, cheese) with a little improvisation (no nutmeg, but sun-dried tomatoes). The classic recipe is presented at the end of the page.

Ingredients

eggplants - 1 kg
onion - 2
minced beef (lamb) - 500 grams
tomatoes - 3 medium
sun-dried tomatoes - 4-5 pcs.
dry red wine - 150 ml
cheese - 100 grams
butter - 70 grams
milk - 1 glass
flour - 1.5 tbsp. spoons
spices, salt, pepper, olive oil

How to cook moussaka

Eggplant for moussaka.
The basis of the moussaka is layers of eggplant, due to which the appetizer holds its shape when served portionwise. To make the serving perfect, take young fruits without ripened seeds.

To peel or not to peel eggplants for moussaka?
In a traditional dish, vegetables are used with the skin, but you can also peel them completely or remove them in strips. When baked, the skin will become soft and practically not noticeable in the dish. If you decide to leave, then choose eggplants without dark spots.

How to cut?
The shape of the cut does not play a big role - cut lengthwise to get plates, or crosswise into circles. The main thing is that the eggplant pieces fit well into the mold, without leaving empty spaces between them. Take this into account when choosing the cutting shape. The thickness of the pieces is 0.5-1 cm.

Then the eggplants should be thermally processed.
How? They can be blanched, baked in the oven, or fried in a frying pan (grill pan).

If you bake in the oven or fry, place the chopped eggplants in a bowl, add salt and leave for 20 minutes to release the bitterness. Rinse under running water and dry. Then fry with a little oil. It is worth remembering that eggplants absorb a lot of oil when frying, and when they are ready, they release the oil back. Knowing this feature, use a minimum of fat - only to lubricate the bottom of the pan, and then place the eggplants on a sieve to allow the oil to drain.

To bake in the oven, brush both sides of the eggplant slices with olive oil.

Minced meat for moussaka.
Fry the minced beef in olive oil. Stir all the time and break up any lumps.

Peel and chop the onion. Cut the tomatoes in half and grate the pulp on a coarse grater, discard the skin. Add onions and tomatoes to the minced meat.

Stir and continue cooking for 5-7 minutes. Then pour in the wine. Which wine is better? Opinions differ on this matter, choose according to your taste - red, white, or even brandy.

Add spices to the minced meat: bay leaf, oregano, allspice, cinnamon, sun-dried tomatoes, lemon zest, chili pepper flakes - to your taste.

Turn the heat to low and evaporate the liquid, bringing the minced meat until cooked and remembering to stir from time to time. The finished minced meat should be somewhat dry and the liquid should be completely evaporated.

Prepare the béchamel sauce.
Melt the butter in a saucepan and stir in the flour; a whisk works great for this. Aim for a thick roux (flour and milk base). Set the heat under the saucepan to minimum. Let the butter and flour almost boil.

Remove the saucepan from the heat and pour in the milk in a thin stream while stirring constantly. Warm the milk slightly before adding.

The sauce will change before your eyes: at first it will be liquid, and after a couple of minutes it will begin to turn into a thick, creamy consistency.

So, the base sauce is ready, but it can be supplemented with grated cheese or egg yolk, and seasoned with nutmeg.

When all the components of the moussaka are ready, you can start assembling. For this purpose you will need a baking dish with sides.

Assembly and laying out.
First, form the bottom layer of eggplant, placing the largest pieces tightly together.

Sprinkle with grated cheese.

The next layer consists of minced meat.

Cover the minced meat with a layer of eggplant. If the shape and quantity of products allows, the styling can be increased by a couple more layers. The last layer is definitely eggplant - they are sprinkled with cheese and poured with bechamel sauce.

Sprinkle the top with cheese.

Cover the pan with foil. Bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees for 15 minutes. Then remove the foil and cook for another 15-20 minutes.

Serving moussaka.
Before serving, moussaka should (if you have the patience) cool down: lukewarm or cold, it is perfectly cut into portioned pieces.

Other moussaka recipes. What Moussaka May Include

Vegetables. Some recipes for Greek moussaka include potatoes, which must be prepared in the same way as zucchini (chopped and fried or baked). Usually it is placed at the base of the casserole to give stability to the multilayer structure. The presence of potatoes does not particularly affect the taste, but a high-calorie dish with potatoes becomes even more satisfying and high-calorie.

Ground meat. Classic moussaka recipes use minced lamb or a mixture of minced lamb and beef, but if you like pork and beef, then cook with it.

Sauce. For the base of the sauce, you can use not only wheat flour, but also corn flour (bechamel with corn flour is pure improvisation, and it is very tasty and unusual).

You can make portioned mini-moussaka: cut the eggplants in half lengthwise, carefully remove part of the pulp, and blanch the boat in salted water; fry the minced meat with the removed pulp, pieces of tomatoes, chopped onions and seasonings; put the minced meat in a boat, pour sauce (yogurt or bechamel) on top; put it in a mold, add a little water and bake it in the oven.

Classic Greek moussaka recipe

Perhaps I should have started with this moussaka recipe since it is considered basic. Includes, in addition to eggplant, potatoes. Nutmeg is included in both minced meat and bechamel.

(for 7 people)

Ingredients

For the base

3 kg potatoes
2 kg eggplant
1/2 liter olive oil

For minced meat

850 grams ground beef
1 onion
2 fresh tomatoes
2 glasses of water
salt and pepper
2/3 cup olive oil

For the bechamel sauce

5-6 tablespoons flour
250 grams butter
400 grams of baked milk
800 grams of water - to dilute the milk
40 grams of grated easy-melting hard cheese
3 egg yolks
1 teaspoon nutmeg powder
2 tablespoons breadcrumbs

How to cook moussaka in Greek

1. Peel the potatoes and cut them into long slices 2 cm thick.

2. Wash the eggplants and cut them into 2 cm thick slices. Place the sliced eggplants in salted water for 20 minutes to remove the bitterness.

3. At medium temperature, fry the potatoes on both sides in olive oil, then the eggplants.

4. To prepare the minced meat, grate 2 tomatoes and finely chop the onion.

5. Fry the onion in a saucepan, add minced meat and fry it for 7 minutes.

6. Add grated tomatoes, salt, pepper, nutmeg to the pan and pour in 2 cups of water.

7. Cook the minced meat for approximately 45 minutes until all the liquid has evaporated.

8. As soon as the potatoes, eggplants and minced meat are ready, start filling the pan. Place a layer of potatoes on the bottom and a layer of eggplant on top of it. Place the minced meat on the eggplants. Place another layer of eggplant on top of the minced meat, and another layer of potatoes on top of the eggplant.

How to make bechamel with eggs

Dilute the baked milk with water. Melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat. Once the butter has melted, add flour to the pan - while constantly stirring the mixture. Then add the nutmeg and egg yolks to the pan, then very slowly pour in the milk.

Turn up the heat. Remove the pan from the heat as soon as the mixture comes to a boil.

An alternative way to prepare bechamel is to slowly add grated cheese and stir until desired thickness. Then you don't need to sprinkle cheese on top of the casserole.

Pour the prepared béchamel sauce over the top potato layer and sprinkle grated cheese and breadcrumbs on top.

Preheat the oven and bake at 200 degrees Celsius for approximately 1 hour 15 minutes until the crust is golden brown.

Recipe with potatoes and zucchini

It is generally accepted that moussaka necessarily includes eggplant. But this is not a feature of all kitchens. In Romania and Serbia, tomatoes are used instead of eggplants. And in Bulgaria, the moussaka recipe calls for the formation of layers of potatoes and minced meat.

Recipe ingredients: eggplants - 4 medium, zucchini - 3 medium, potatoes - 2 medium, sweet pepper - 2, onion - 1, tomato - 4-5, garlic - 2 cloves, tomato paste - 1 tbsp. spoon, minced beef - 500 g, seasonings (cumin, nutmeg, salt, pepper, coriander, thyme, oregano), fresh parsley, olive oil, parmesan - 70 g, bread crumbs.

Preparation. Cut the eggplants and zucchini into slices, place in a colander and generously salt. Cover with a lid and press down with a weight to drain the liquid. Leave for 20 minutes. Then fry in olive oil until light brown. Remove excess oil with kitchen paper.

Lightly boil the potatoes in their jackets. Peel and cut into slices no more than 5 mm thick. Fry finely chopped onion and ringed pepper (remove the seeds first) until soft and slightly brown. Add 1 clove of garlic pressed through a press. Fry the ground beef in a frying pan with butter, seasoning it with spices, pepper and salt.

Make tomato sauce. Peel the tomatoes, cut into small pieces, mix with paste and 1 clove of garlic. Season to taste and simmer over low heat until thickened.
Mix breadcrumbs with finely chopped parsley, finely grated cheese and spices.

Place in the mold in layers: first - a layer of potatoes, sprinkle with breadcrumbs, then a layer of minced meat, then a layer of eggplant, pour over half the tomato sauce and lay out the fried onions and peppers, sprinkle with breadcrumbs with herbs and cheese, then a layer of zucchini, pour over them with the remaining tomato sauce and sprinkle with cheese.

Bake at 180C for about 30 minutes. Cover with foil for the first 10 minutes. Let cool for 15-20 minutes before serving.

Vegetarian moussaka without eggplant

Moussaka is a terribly high-calorie dish. And at the same time delicious. Those who don't eat meat will love this vegetarian casserole recipe. To be precise, this is moussaka without meat, but with eggs and dairy products, that is, moussaka for lacto-ovo vegetarians.

Recipe ingredients: carrots - 250 g, celery - 1 root (about 100 g), onion - 2, olive oil, potatoes - 5, green beans - 500 g, rice - 0.5 cups, eggs - 4, milk - 0.5 -0.75 cups.

Making moussaka for vegetarians

Finely chop or grate the carrots and celery. Fry in oil until soft with finely chopped onion. Boil the potatoes in their skins, peel and grate them on a coarse grater. Cook beans and rice separately. Cut the beans into small pieces. Layer in pan, starting with the potatoes.

Make a sauce from milk and eggs, add salt and your favorite spices. You can also make classic bechamel. Pour over the vegetables (shake the pan a little so that the sauce reaches all layers).
Bake for 20 minutes at 200 degrees. Cut the cooled moussaka into squares or rectangular pieces. Can be served with sour cream.

Moussaka is a bright representative of traditional Greek cuisine. It's essentially a layered vegetable casserole with fried minced meat, topped with a creamy cheese sauce. Because of its similarity to the famous Italian masterpiece, moussaka is also called “vegetable lasagne.” One of its famous variations is Greek moussaka with eggplant. The recipe is suggested to be used for both festive and everyday tables. Moussaka is a very filling and beautiful dish. At the same time, it is very high in calories and is far from dietary: it can feed a large company or serve as a full-fledged family dinner. Moussaka does not require any additional garnish due to the presence of a variety of vegetables, which also make it healthy. This dish is especially suitable for those who willingly include eggplants in their diet. After all, in this dish they are especially tender, juicy and aromatic.

Moussaka with eggplant

To prepare moussaka you will need:

4 eggplants (about 700 g);
500 g minced meat;
2 onions;
4-5 tomatoes (about 300 g);
75 g hard cheese;
150 ml dry white wine;
50 ml vegetable oil, preferably olive oil.

In the classic recipe for Greek moussaka with eggplant, lamb or beef is used to prepare minced meat. As a last resort, you can mix beef and pork in a 1:1 ratio.

To prepare the sauce you will need:

400 ml milk;
150 g hard cheese;
2 tbsp. l. flour;
2 eggs;
75 g butter;
a pinch of grated nutmeg.

Preparation of products:

Preparing the sauce:

Melt butter in a preheated saucepan.
Add flour to the butter and fry it, stirring constantly, until slightly golden brown, carefully breaking up any lumps.
Pour in the warmed milk little by little. Continuing to stir constantly, bring the mass to a homogeneous consistency and thickening (the sauce should have the density of liquid sour cream). Remove from heat.
Beat the eggs a little with a fork and carefully add them into the sauce, trying to do it quickly so that they do not have time to curdle due to the temperature.
Grate the cheese on a fine grater. Stir it into the egg-milk mixture while it is warm to melt it. Season the mixture with nutmeg, add salt to taste and mix well.

Greek moussaka with eggplant

Moussaka preparation process:

All layers are repeated again, starting with the eggplants.
Pour creamy sauce evenly over the formed casserole and sprinkle grated cheese on top.

For baking, it is better to use a dish with high sides so that when pouring the sauce into the dish, it does not overflow over the edges.

Ready-made moussaka is a fragrant casserole with a golden cheese crust. Before serving, you need to let it brew and “rest” for about 15 minutes so that it is saturated with the juices of all the ingredients. It is more effective to present moussaka on the table directly on a baking sheet or in a baking dish, and divide it into portions right in front of the participants of the meal.

Many cooks argue about whether it is worth using potatoes in the recipe for Greek moussaka with eggplant? This is rather an individual decision that everyone makes in accordance with their taste preferences. Potatoes will not spoil the overall impression of the dish, but will only emphasize its taste and add an extraordinary aroma.

Before adding potatoes to moussaka, they should be cut into small slices, lightly fried in a frying pan and placed in a baking dish as the first layer, then minced meat, eggplants and then according to the main recipe.

Unlike the main recipe, moussaka with potatoes and eggplant should be baked a little longer. Do not forget that potatoes are used in a semi-prepared state and they also need time to be fully cooked.

In order for the finished dish to be less fatty and high in calories, you can not fry the ingredients, but bake them for 15 minutes on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper without oil. Another way to get rid of excess oil is to place the fried vegetables on a paper towel for 5 minutes and let the fat absorb.

There are many varieties of moussaka. In almost every country there is a similar puff dish using baked vegetables, various sauces and additional ingredients, such as mushrooms, bell peppers, nuts and even exotic seafood.

Bulgarian moussaka differs from traditional Greek: if eggplants are a mandatory ingredient in a Greek dish, then Bulgarian moussaka can be prepared with or without them. We present you both cooking options.

Bulgarian moussaka without eggplant

Authentic Bulgarian moussakagetting ready Definitely with tomatoes and bell peppers, but in this recipe we replaced them with Bulgarian sauce, which is prepared on the basis of these vegetables. If you want to make an “authentic” moussaka, use a mixture of finely chopped and fried bell peppers and tomatoes instead of sauce.

Ingredients:

1/3 tbsp. olive oil;

0.5 kg minced beef;

1 tsp each spices: ground cumin, paprika, black pepper;

1 tbsp. l. ground or chopped thyme (if you don’t have thyme, you can replace it with basil);

1 tsp. salt;

medium-sized potatoes (4 pcs.);

1 egg;

150 ml Bulgarian tomato sauce (you can use regular ketchup);

1 tbsp. natural yogurt without additives.

Preparation

Let's start preparing the moussaka: cut the potatoes into small cubes, lightly beat the egg in a glass and mix with yogurt. Turn on the oven to preheat to 170°C. While it is heating up, heat the olive oil in a frying pan and fry in him ground meat. Add spices and salt to it. When browned, add potatoes to the minced meat and fry, after 5 minutes add ketchup and thyme. Fill with water so that the minced meat is almost completely covered with it, reduce the heat and simmer about 15 minutes. Then put all the minced meat in a baking dish and evenly pour in beaten yogurt and egg.

Moussaka is also baked for 30-40 minutes.

Bulgarian moussaka with eggplant

Ingredients:

3 medium eggplants;

medium-sized potatoes (3 pcs.);

2 large bell peppers;

4 medium tomatoes;

2-3 cloves of garlic;

vegetable (preferably olive) oil;

50 g hard grated cheese;

2 eggs;

salt to taste.

Preparation

Bulgarian moussaka with eggplant is common in the south of the country, closer to Greece. In other regions of Bulgaria, eggplants are not put into moussaka. Our recipe calls for eggplant.

Take the eggplants, wash them, cut off the tails, but don’t peel them; cut them into slices and fry in a frying pan in vegetable oil. While the eggplants are frying, boil the potatoes in their jackets. There are no potatoes, but the Balkan (Bulgarian, Romanian) recipe for this dish is not complete without it. When the potatoes are cooked until tender, peel them and cut them into slices. Then we get to the peppers and tomatoes - we also cut them into circles.

Now take a round oven dish, grease it well with oil and begin to lay out the moussaka. We lay the circles in a sort of “caterpillar” pattern - tightly to each other in circles, like beads, in turn we place rings of eggplant, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers. We make several circles in this way so that the entire form is filled with vegetables.

Now salt the moussaka, sprinkle with finely chopped garlic (not crushed!), pour in beaten eggs in a separate bowl and sprinkle with cheese on top. Moussaka is baked in the oven for about half an hour at a temperature of 180-200 ° C and served hot. Before serving, the dish is cut into sectors. You can serve it with sour cream sauce or yogurt sauce with herbs and garlic.

Bon appetit!

I consider myself part of the community of vegetable lovers because of their low calorie content and benefits for the body. But if they are prepared by frying them in a huge amount of vegetable oil, and before that, rolling them in flour, then all their benefits disappear, covered with a layer of fat, even vegetable fat. Classic moussaka, although it consists mainly of vegetables, is not a dietary dish. But we will go a different way. :wink:

But you just need to give up frying eggplants in a dish called moussaka. Do you think it will be tasteless? Not at all.

So, we will need:

3 eggplants

3 potatoes

200 grams of young cheese

300 grams of minced meat

a little vegetable oil

Diet moussaka

Let's start cooking.

Let's start with the main component of moussaka - eggplant. Following the classics, eggplants need to be kept in salt so that the excess bitterness that we don’t need is removed from them. To do this, we cut clean eggplants into circles (thin ones are better and more elegant) and sprinkle them with salt. And let it sit for 30 minutes:

After this, we rinse the eggplants from excess salt, squeeze them out, sprinkle them with vegetable oil and put them in the microwave for 5 minutes at the highest power: