One Pot Moussaka Rice
Like moussaka, but in half the time
I love moussaka!
Cream, potato, eggplant, (veggie) meat, yum. So good.
The last time I made moussaka was in 2018.
It took me too long to make it - during the time that I was making it, a friend came over, visited for an hour, left, and I still wasn’t done prepping the ingredients! (To be fair, I was taking my time).
Because of the time commitment, I haven’t made moussaka since. 😆
This one pot moussaka rice is a mix of my rice cooker meals, and moussaka. But really, it’s inspired by my Dad’s One Pot Spanish Rice, except instead of tomato and curry, we use eggplant and chickpeas.
But we’ll use rice instead of potato as our carb.
This one pot dish that takes about 10 minutes of prep (chopping ingredients) and 35 minuntes to cook. 10 minutes of that is pseudo-active work - sautéing the vegetables - and 25 minutes of that is letting the whole dish cook.
And it’s protein packed, too.
For the protein, we use veggie ground round and chickpeas.
To make it creamy, you can add about 1 cup of cashew cream or any non dairy cream you like. It’s optional, but really makes the dish even more delicious. Plus, moussaka traditionally calls for cream!
Finally, this is great for meal prep!
One Pot Moussaka Rice
Serves: 4 - 8
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 35 minutes
Tools
A big pot
Ingredients
Stir Fry
1 eggplant, cubed
1 small onion, diced
4 cloves minced garlic
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup white vinegar
Spices
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp tomato paste
1 tbsp dried oregano
Rice & Protein
1 can diced or crushed tomatoes (28 liquid ounces or 792 mL)
1 package of veggie ground round
1 can chickpeas (about 1 1/2 cups)
1 cup uncooked white rice (washed!)
1 1/2 cups water
Method
Do this before you start prepping anything else! Cube the eggplant into half inch slices - they should be SMALL! Otherwise they might not cook through properly. Sprinkle the eggplant with the 1 1/2 tsp salt to let it sweat a bit.
Please don’t skip this step, otherwise your eggplant might come out hard and rubbery. Not fun.
Dice the onion and mince the garlic.
Heat the vegetable oil in a big pot over medium high heat.
Stir in the onion and eggplant— in all its “sweaty” salty glory — and cook for 10 minutes, until the eggplant is cooked. It should cook down by half.
Add the white vinegar to deglaze the bottom of the pot.
Stir in the garlic, tomato paste, oregano, and cook for a minute.
Stir in the canned tomatoes, veggie ground round, chickpeas, white rice, water.
Bring to a boil.
Give it a good stir to get everything off the bottom, and then reduce to medium low heat.
Simmer until rice is tender and the liquid has been absorbed, which should take about 20 - 25 minutes. I usually do 25 minutes.
Optional: Top with a generous portion of cashew cream, or your non-dairy cream of choice. Recipe for cashew cream below.
Let sit for about 10 minutes before serving.
Enjoy!
Link to printer version.
Cashew Cream
Tools
A high speed blender. Alternatively, any blender.
Ingredients
1 cup raw cashews
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp lemon
1/2 cup water
Method
If using a “regular” (not high speed) blender, then soak the 1 cup of cashews in 1/2 cup boiling water for 20 minutes. Otherwise, skip this step.
Combine everything into your blender: the cashews, water, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp lemon.
Blend until creamy and no longer chunky. This could take a few minutes.
Enjoy! It keeps well in the fridge for up to a week.
Link to printer version.
Make it creamy: Adding the optional cashew cream topping really makes this a moussaka-like dish. Otherwise, without the cream, it’s a moussaka inspired stir fry, but far less moussaka-y.
Add more protein:
You could easily double the amount of chickpeas in this recipe.
Alternatively, add in 1 cup of washed red lentils right before bringing the mix to a boil in step 8. Extra protein, and you won’t even notice it!
Meal prep it: This makes such a large batch that you won’t need to double it in order to meal prep. So when you make this, consider a week’s worth of meals sorted (or at least a few days, depending on your portion sizes).
White onion: Red onion.
Vegetable oil: Any neutral oil works. Olive oil would work. I would not recommend coconut oil because of its coconut-y taste.
White vinegar: Anything acidic, really. Apple cider vinegar, white wine, red wine, any other kind of vinegar should work. Shaoxing cooking wine, too.
Tomato paste: You could skip this if you want, or substitue in ketchup.
Veggie ground round: Feel free to omit, or substitute in with an additional cup of chickpeas.
Chickpeas: Similar to the veggie ground round, feel free to omit, or add in more veggie ground round.
White rice: Brown rice would work. In fact, you could even skip the rice, and make this dish as a sort of sauce / stir fry, and top it on top of rice or your carb of choice, or whatever you prefer.