Deconstructed Moussaka with Greek Salad
Everybody has had moussaka sometime in their life. I remember during my student days I would buy the premade version from the supermarket and stick it in the oven and have it done in 20 minutes. I’ve come a long way since then. Now I’m deconstructing moussaka and everything. And deconstructed sounds all kinds of fancy, like when you go to Michelin star restaurant and they present you something that has been deconstructed and it’s basically just a foam of something that it used to be. I swear that’s not the case here. Deconstructed is just a slightly pretentious way of using the same ingredients but presenting it in a different way.
For this recipe instead of layering all the ingredients in one dish, I created bowls from the aubergine and used those to fill with the minced meat. I also created a gluten free béchamel sauce to cover the top with. Emphasis on the gluten free as this is not a paleo dish because I used all the butter and parmesan. Which is why it’s so filling as well. One aubergine cup per person with a generous serving of the Greek salad should do the trick. Unless you have hungry teenagers. My boyfriend loved it and is usually a big eater but he was content with the one bowl and salad as the side, happy days.
This recipe is relatively easy but might be a little labor intensive, which is why I doubled the portion so you have leftovers and don’t have to cook for the next day (or two, depending on the size of your household). It’s perfect for meal prepping I would only suggest to make the salad on the day you are planning to eat this to have it nice and fresh. Now let’s get to deconstructing!
Deconstructed Moussaka with Greek Salad
Ingredients
Moussaka
- 4 aubergine
- 500 gram ground beef/pork
- 1 onion small dice
- 4 cloves garlic minced
- 700 gram sweet potato diced. Get the white sweet potato, for this recipe.
- 400 gram diced canned tomatoes
- 2 tsp dried thyme
- ½ tsp nutmeg
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tbsp tomato paste
- 2 tsp salt
- ½ tsp black pepper
- 2 tbsp avocado oil
Gluten Free Béchamel Sauce
- 100 gram butter
- 70 gram tapioca
- 800 ml almond milk
- Pepper
- pinch nutmeg
- 1 tsp salt
- 100 gram parmesan grated
- 3 egg yolks
- 50 gram grated old cheese
Greek Salad
- 100 gram olives chopped
- 150 gram feta diced and crumbled
- 1 cucumber sliced
- 250 gram cherry tomatoes diced
- 50 gram lamb’s lettuce
- 1 avocado diced
- 1 red onion sliced
Dressing
- ¼ cup olive oil
- 1 tbsp fresh parsley chopped
- ½ lime juice
- 2 tbsp red wine vinegar
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
Moussaka
- Wash and cut the aubergine in half lengthwise. With a sharp knife carve the middle flesh out leaving 1cm on the side. Use a spoon to help remove the middle section and bottom that you possibly didn’t reach with the knife. You are left with aubergine cups to be filled later.
- Dice the aubergine flesh you took out and set aside.
- In a big pan heat up the avocado oil and fry the onion for 2 minutes.
- Add the minced garlic and fry for another 3 seconds before adding the minced meat. Cook the meat of completely while stirring regularly before moving on to the next step.
- Add the tomato paste and canned tomatoes to the pan and stir. Move on to the spices and add thyme, nutmeg, cinnamon, salt, pepper and stir everything together.
- Lastly add the diced aubergine and sweet potato, stir together and cover the pan for 15 minutes while it continues cooking.
Gluten Free Béchamel Sauce
- Preheat the oven to 170°C.
- In a pan on low heat melt the butter.
- Add the tapioca and whisk it together with the butter until it has soaked up everything without leaving lumps.
- Gradually add the almond milk to the pan, in 4 batches and whisking everything together before moving on to the next batch. Around 600 ml you will notice it will start looking more like a thick cream.
- Once you’ve added all the milk continue stirring until the cream starts to create bubbles from the heat.
- Take it off the heat and add the salt, nutmeg, parmesan, egg yolks and pepper.
- Place parchment paper on a baking sheet and place the aubergine cups on the sheet.
- Fill the cups with the moussaka filling and cover with the béchamel sauce. You might have a little bit leftover or you can just pour everything on top.
- Sprinkle the top with the grated old cheese and put in the oven for 25 minutes.
Greek Salad
- While the moussaka is in the oven you can get started on the salad.
- Put all the chopped ingredients in a bowl, mix all the ingredients for the dressing together in a small bowl and pour over the salad. Toss everything together and at this moment the deconstructed moussaka should also be coming out of the oven and you are ready to serve.
This was DELICIOUS! I really really enjoyed it, as did my husband. We ate 1 aubergine each, so had enough for 4 meals. Although we were left with another 2 portions of the filling, and quite a lot of béchamel sauce, but that’s OK because we can have a lasagne or something later in the week!
Thank you so much for your feedback. Glad you both liked! I also had some leftovers but not as much as you mentioned. I definitely overstuffed each aubergine with quite some filling. I’ll review the amounts next time I make it and update the recipe!