Pasta ’ncasciata brings two iconic Sicilian ingredients together in one big, cozy casserole.
First, eggplant, which grows prolifically on the island and is a cornerstone of its produce-forward cuisine.
Second, caciocavallo, a Southern Italian cheese that’s a great melter, and, depending on its age, can be sweet and milky or spicy and funky.
To make ’ncasciata, slices of eggplant are fried in olive oil (no breading here) and shingled on top of short, tubular pasta that’s coated in tomato sauce, layered with the cheese, and packed into a baking dish.
Once it goes into the oven, the cheese melts and all of the components get snug and warm.
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Every family puts its own stamp on ’ncasciata.
Some tuck peas, hard-boiled eggs, salami, meatballs, or cauliflower in among the essential ingredients; others incorporate a rich besciamella sauce.
The one thing they all have in common? Comfort.
[Pasta ’ncasciata] is great comfort . . . meant-to-be-shared food
—Andrea Soranidis
“[Pasta ’ncasciata] is great comfort . . . meant-to-be-shared food,” said Andrea Soranidis, author of The Petite Cook blog, when we connected to discuss the pasta al forno that she learned to make from her mother.
Soranidis explained that in her hometown of Messina in the northeastern corner of Sicily, ’ncasciata can swing summery or wintry, though it’s particularly popular on the midsummer holiday Ferragosto.
It’s then, she said, that some families even tote the casserole to the beach as part of their picnic spread.
In December, ’ncasciata makes the rounds again as a must-have for Christmas feasts.
And the rest of the year? Consider ’ncasciata on call for whenever there’s a party.
’Ncasciata Is Mostly Make-Ahead
If you like, cook the eggplant and sauce in advance and then on serving day simply boil the pasta and assemble and bake the casserole.
- Roast eggplant slices in oven (can refrigerate for up to 24 hours).
- Make quick sauce with passata and sausage (can refrigerate for up to 3 days).
- Parboil rigatoni and toss with some of sauce.
- Layer pasta with caciocavallo, eggplant, more sauce, and Parmesan.
Eggplant
Although some cooks opt for chunks of eggplant strewn throughout the dish, I wanted to go the traditional route with overlapping slices on top.
Most cooks start by salting the slices to draw out moisture before batch-frying them in olive oil. The result is delicious, but the process is somewhat time-consuming.
Happily, a simple roasting technique closely replicated the golden color and creamy flesh of shallow-fried eggplant.
I simply brushed 1/2-inch-thick slices with ample olive oil, arranged them on a baking sheet, and slid them into a hot oven, where they softened and turned lush. A bonus was that the oven’s dry heat drove off enough of the eggplant’s liquid to make presalting unnecessary.
The Queen of Sicilian Cuisine
With steady sunshine and areas of mineral-rich, volcanic soil, the Sicilian landscape is prime for cultivating eggplant. During the late summer and early autumn—peak season for small-scale growers—locals buy eggplant by the bushel and cook it in dishes such as melanzane alla Parmigiana and pasta alla norma. So loved is “la regina” (the queen), that it’s common to serve more than one eggplant dish at the same meal. Sicilian food blogger Andrea Soranidis, for example, likes to accompany ’ncasciata with a sweet-and-sour side of eggplant caponata.
Pomodoro and Caciocavallo
The tomato sauce for ’ncasciata can be anything from a simple, barely cooked affair to the all-day-simmered bolognese that Soranidis makes.
While a slow-cooked sauce is undeniably delicious, I found that it wasn’t mandatory; in fact, the brightness of a quick pomodoro was a lovely contrast to the succulent eggplant and creamy cheese.
Made with passata (uncooked, strained tomato puree) instead of canned crushed tomatoes, my sauce had a fresh, tangy-sweet flavor, and its smooth texture coated the pasta evenly.
Fresh garlic and basil rounded out the sauce, but I didn’t stop there. I enjoyed the heartiness of ’ncasciata recipes that included meat, so I bulked things up with sweet Italian sausage.
Its springy texture, porky richness, and fennel flavor added interest to the tender, mild eggplant and pasta.
Speaking of pasta, I chose rigatoni, making sure to parboil it just before assembling the casserole to prevent it from turning mushy during baking. Plenty of sauce ensured that the pasta would finish cooking through in the oven without drying out.
Caciocavallo
On the popular Italian police procedural Il Commissario Montalbano, the titular detective is known to bribe his informants with cheese. One of his best performers is the teardrop-shaped caciocavallo.
The cow’s milk pasta filata (stretched curd) cheese gets its distinctive appearance from being tied at the top and hung in pairs “a cavallo” (like saddlebags on a horse) over a beam.
Suspended this way, the cheese develops an ovoid shape with a nub on top as it ages.
Young caciocavallo is pale and elastic, with a milky, subtly sweet flavor.
Older specimens are firmer and more crumbly, prized for their intense savory, nutty, and even spicy flavors.
In Sicily, caciocavallo is included in antipasto platters, grated over pasta, layered into baked pastas such as ’ncasciata, and even suspended over an open flame so that it can be spread onto bread as it melts.
Finally, the caciocavallo. I shredded a generous chunk of a young cheese so that it would melt into the crevices of the sauced rigatoni.
After the eggplant was arranged on top, a final layer of sauce protected the slices against turning leathery, and a sprinkle of Parmesan browned into a salty, nutty topping.
As it baked, the eggplant basted the pasta with roasty juices, the sausage infused it with meatiness, and the supple cheese provided gooey richness. Let the bubbling casserole rest briefly so the goodies can settle, and then?
“Share it with the people you love,” as Soranidis suggests.
Pasta 'Ncasciata
Filled with eggplant, cheese, and sausage, this rich, cozy casserole is tailor-made for big gatherings.
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