Healthy Moussaka Recipe

Moussaka is a delicious meal originating from Greece, it's mainly made up of aubergine and meat. I absolutely love it, however the calories can be quite high! I found this recipe a little while ago that knocks the calories down to just 325 per portion that's still equally as tasty.

The ingredients you'll need are:

Olive Oil

1 Onion (chopped)

2 Garlic Cloves (chopped)

2 Carrots (chopped)

450g Extra Lean Minced Beef

100ml White Wine

Ground Cinnamon (roughly 2 tsps)

1/4 tsp All Spice

400g Tinned Tomatoes

2 tbsp Tomato Purée

1 tbsp chopped Oregano leaves

2 handfuls chopped Parsley

2 Aubergines

1 tbsp lemon

and for the topping:

2 Eggs

1 tbsp Cornflour

300g Low Fat Greek Yoghurt

50g Parmesan

Step 1

Heat the oil in a frying pan, adding the onions and garlic cloves, fry them until they begin to turn golden (around 7 minutes). Add the carrots and fry for a further 2 minutes.

Step 2

Add the beef to the pan, keep stirring it to ensure it breaks up until you can no longer see any pink bits of meat, it should all be brown. Add the wine, cinnamon and allspice, stir until most of the liquid has evaporated.

Step 3

Tip in the tinned tomatoes, 2 tbsp of tomatoe purée and a tablespoon of water, keep stirring to break up the tomatoes. Add the Oregano,one handful of parsley and season with pepper before covering and cooking for 30 minutes on a low heat. Don't forget to stir every now and then!

Step 4

Whilst the meat is cooking trim the ends of the aubergine and brush some oil onto a baking tray. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees and mix a tbsp of olive oil with the lemon. Slice the aubergine so that the pieces are 1cm thick and lay them flat on the baking tray. Brush them with the lemon/oil mix, season with pepper and pop into the oven. These will need to cook for roughly 25 minutes until they are soft when you can take them out and set them aside. You'll need to turn the oven temperature down to 180 degrees now.

Step 5

Using an ovenproof dish, spoon in some of the meat mixture before laying the aubergine slices on top so that they overlap.Spoon the rest of the mixture on top, I popped a few more aubergine slices on top of this because I love it so much! In a seperate bowl add the cornflour to some yoghurt and stir until it thickens, then add the rest of the yoghurt. Beat two eggs in another bowl and then combine the mixtures adding 25g of parmesan in with it.

Step 6

Pour the white mixture over the top of the meat, sprinkling over the rest of the cheese and a tsp of cinnamon. Bake for roughly 45-50 minutes until the top is golden brown and bubbling, yum!

This should be enough to serve 6 people, it's best served with a glass of white wine and a crisp rocket salad.