This easy stuffed eggplant recipe with chicken and cheddar cheese is a great dinner option everyone will love and can be made in 30 minutes.
Cheesy Chicken Stuffed Eggplant
Whether you’re looking for a simple weeknight meal or something to show off at your next dinner party, these cheesy, delicious stuffed eggplants are sure to be a crowd-pleaser!
Once you try this chicken and eggplant recipe, you’ll wonder why you never cook with eggplant more often!
Its a hearty and nutrient-dense recipe that will have you going back for seconds because it’s too good to only have one.
Enough of just talking about how good it is, let’s get to this recipe!
What is Eggplant?
Eggplant is a member of the nightshade family, closely related to tomatoes, potatoes, and the tobacco plant. It’s a great versatile ingredient that can be used for all sorts of recipes.
One of the most common ways people use eggplant is when they want an alternative to meat in a recipe.
This is because it holds up as a hearty main ingredient that’s packed full of nutrients and antioxidants that support heart health, cholesterol, liver health, and a number of other things.
Ingredients For Eggplant Chicken
A lot of these ingredients are ones you might already have stocked in your kitchen.
So, there’s no excuse not to make this recipe if you already have almost everything you need to make it. Lentil stuffed eggplant is another great pantry eggplant recipe too!
Just one quick in and out trip to the store and you’ll have everything you need to make this amazing cheesy chicken stuffed eggplant.
- Eggplant
- Garlic cloves
- Extra virgin olive oil
- Salt & pepper
- Chicken breast
- Tomatoes
- Cheddar cheese
- Green onions or parsley
How to Make Chicken and Eggplant
You don’t need any trained skills to make this recipe easily come together. It’s all pretty straightforward and simple, which allows you to get it on the table, and better yet, into your mouth in no time!
Just preheat the oven and score each eggplant in half on the diagonal and stick the slices of garlic in the slits in the flesh.
Then, you will drizzle the eggplant with the olive oil and season with salt and pepper.
Roast on a baking sheet, and once roasted, remove the eggplant from oven, top with chicken and tomatoes then layer the cheese slices on top of that.
Return to oven until cheese is melted, then remove it from oven and garnish with the green onion.
Do I Have To Use Eggplant?
I personally love how this eggplant pairs with the chicken and cheese for a fresh Mediterranean style dish, but you certainly don’t have to use eggplant.
Really any squash will work, so pick your favorite and get cooking. Just be sure when working with something other than eggplant, you follow proper instructions for prepping. Some squashes involve a deseeding process.
A few squashes you could try are:
- Butternut squash
- Spaghetti squash
- Acorn Squash
- Summer Squash
You could also try these cheesy chicken stuffed poblano peppers for a similar style recipe.
Can I Make Eggplant Chicken With Different Toppings?
Of course! Feel free to mix up the type of cheese and the additional toppings.
I kept it simple with just a few extra toppings, but if you wanted to you could load it up with as much as you want.
You could add some artichoke hearts, sliced vegetables, olives, or anything else you can think of.
This is a recipe you can really get creative with.
What To Serve With Chicken and Eggplant
The side dish options are endless! If you want to keep things simple, try lemon roasted asparagus or green bean fries. and a good starch like this Greek potato casserole.
You can get even simpler with your potato options and try these crispy potato strips or sweet potato tots. Both are super easy and so delicious.
If you want to get some fruits in with your sides, then try out sweet and salty green bean salad or this lemon quinoa with roasted grapes and walnuts.
Tips For Making Stuffed Eggplant Recipes
- When purchasing eggplant, look for those that are heavy for their size with firm, evenly colored and unblemished skin. Caps and stems should be intact with no mold.
- Refrigerate eggplant in plastic bags for up to 5 days.
- There are many different types of eggplants, ranging in different colors and shapes. For this recipe, you’ll want to use the more typical eggplant that is purple and oblong in shape.
- Choose the shiniest color eggplants at the grocery store. Matte color eggplants are the ones which are not fresh.
More Eggplant Recipes
Roasted Baby Eggplants with Goat Cheese Stuffing
Cheesy Chicken Stuffed Eggplant
Ingredients
- 2 medium eggplants, sliced in half lengthwise
- 3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
- 2-3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- salt & pepper
- 8 ounces cooked chicken breast, shredded
- 1/2 cup diced tomatoes
- 4 ounces grated cheddar cheese
- parsley or green onions, chopped for garnish
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400°F degrees.
- Score each eggplant half on the diagonal.
- Rub each half with the garlic cloves then stick the slices of garlic into some of the slits.
- Drizzle the eggplant with the olive oil and season generously with salt and pepper.
- Roast for 20 minutes on a baking sheet.
- Remove eggplant from oven, top with chicken and tomatoes then sprinkle the grated cheese on top.
- Return to oven for another 5 minutes, until cheese is melted.
- Remove from oven and garnish with parsley/green onion.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Gina Matsoukas is an AP syndicated writer. She is the founder, photographer and recipe developer of Running to the Kitchen — a food website focused on providing healthy, wholesome recipes using fresh and seasonal ingredients. Her work has been featured in numerous media outlets both digital and print, including MSN, Huffington post, Buzzfeed, Women’s Health and Food Network.
i’m always looking for more eggplant recipes – this looks great!
i have several eggplants just waiting to be used!
Colorful ride home! And you made it home alive ;) Still glad it wasn’t a Yankees game.
what an experience but hey we have this recipe now :P I usually struggle with ideas to make eggplants – this sounds simple and delicious. p.s i will be using kitchenaid to shred chicken next time :)
Ha, the train is a great place to be, isnt it?! On the bright side, these look amazing! I never eat eggplant, but now I want it
“It’s the Spanish speaking thugs in the corner who you can’t understand and fear might stab you if you so much as look at them.” Ouch!
I love to people watch so I’m sure that train ride would have entertained me. Love this recipe.
Oooooooh, those look fabulous!
If you HAD stuffed it with cheese and pickles, I wouldn’t judge you. Pickles should be their own food group in my opinion. Either way, sounds like stereotypical NYC-or-Jersey girl had a great idea and one that you’ve adapted into something delicious! Eggplant is so good, but when you stuff it, or add other yummy things with it, it becomes Nirvana. Yeah, I said it.
P.S. I encounter the same kind of people, except with horrible Michigan-northern-esque type accents on the local bus to and from work. Except most of them are drunk hobos asking for 50 cents and reek of god knows what. Or students with their designer purses figuring out where they can go dancing and “get wasted” on a Wednesday night.
I’m always at a loss for new ways to cook with eggplant. Love this version and fairly certain, it will taste a lot better than stiletto girl’s version.