This eggplant and tomato rice bake from Nadia Fragnito’s new vegan cookbook NATALE: Recipes for a Vegan Italian Christmas is a great festive dinner to add to your holiday recipes. The dish is often called timballo, and has layers of creamy, tomato-infused rice and golden slices of fried eggplant. The rich flavors and textures create a beautiful centerpiece, making it ideal for the holiday table.

Read more: 10 Vegan Eggplant Recipes

To start, you cook arborio or carnaroli rice with onions, garlic, crushed tomatoes, and vegetable stock. These ingredients infuse the rice with a deep, savory flavor, while the addition of nutritional yeast or vegan parmesan adds a cheesy richness. Chopped parsley adds a fresh note, balancing the tomato and garlic. Next, you slice and fry the eggplant until each piece turns lightly golden, enhancing its natural sweetness.

Assembling the timballo is easy and rewarding. Line a ring cake tin with the fried eggplant slices, then layer the rice and vegan mozzarella cubes. This layering ensures each slice has a perfect mix of textures. Bake until the rice forms a slight crust, giving it a satisfying bite. Serve this timballo warm for a cozy, crowd-pleasing dish. It’s gluten-free, beautiful to present, and pairs wonderfully with seasonal sides. This eggplant and tomato rice bake truly captures the essence of festive, plant-based dining.

Read more: 11 Vegan Italian Recipes

Eggplant and tomato rice bake

Enjoy this centerpiece for a special dinner or make it closer to the holiday season. This showstopper is also an excellent Christmas centerpiece.

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Servings

Ingredients

Olive oil
1 onion diced
400 g arborio or carnaroli rice
1.5 liters vegetable stock
250 g crushed tomato or passata
3 tbsp tomato paste
40 g vegan parmesan grated, or 3 tbsp nutritional yeast
Large handful of parsley chopped
Salt
150 grams vegan mozzarella cheese cubed
2 large eggplants
Sunflower oil for shallow frying

Instructions

Heat a big glug of olive oil in a large pot. Sauté the onion until softened, then add the garlic and cook for another minute. Stir in the rice and sauté for a couple of minutes until lightly toasted.
Pour in half of the vegetable stock along with the tomatoes and paste. Simmer, stirring frequently, until the rice absorbs the liquid.
Gradually add the remaining stock, continuing to simmer until the rice is cooked through, about 20 minutes. Stir in the vegan parmesan or nutritional yeast, parsley and season with pinches of salt to taste. Remove from the heat and allow to cool.
Slice the eggplants lengthwise into long pieces. Shallow fry in the sunflower oil on each side until lightly browned. Drain well on absorbent paper.
Grease a 23-24 cm diameter ring cake tin. Line the tine with the fried eggplant slices, overlapping them slightly. Spoon about half of the cooked rice over the eggplant, pressing down evenly.
Distribute the mozzarella over the rice layer, then top with the remaining rice, smoothing it down to reach the top of the tin.
Bake at 190°C for about 30 minutes or until the rice forms a slight crust on top. Cool a little before carefully inverting the timballo onto a serving plate. You may need to tap on the tin to help release it. Serve warm.

This recipe was reprinted with permission from Nadia Fragnito from The Vegan Italian Kitchen and excerpted from NATALE: Recipes for a Vegan Italian Christmas. You can find her website here and her Instagram here.