When Rick Martinez set out to develop this moussaka recipe, he opted to use eggplant, lamb, and tomatoes. His then fellow senior food editor Chris Morocco wasn’t convinced. Chris’s platonic ideal of the dish is tomato-free, relying on layers of potato, eggplant, and ground beef. So it goes with comfort food in every culture, says Rick; everyone has their own version. In Turkish kitchens, zucchini can stand in for eggplant slices. Other versions feature toasted breadcrumbs or creamy lentils.
Greek moussaka, like this one, with its pillowy top of creamy béchamel sauce, is the best-known version in the US. Like lasagna Bolognese, this is a project recipe best reserved for a weekend, but none of the techniques are complicated. Instead of frying the ½-inch thick slices of eggplant in tedious batches, Rick saves you time (and paper towels) by baking them. If you’d like to break the prep up over a few days, the ground meat and tomato sauce can be cooled and refrigerated for up to three days, and the white sauce or béchamel (technically a mornay since there’s cheese) for up to two. Once assembled and baked, the golden brown moussaka is a stunner, so choose a baking dish you won’t mind bringing straight to the table for everyone to see.
While it’s cooling, make this Greek salad. Its crunchy green pepper and cucumbers are just the things to balance out the meal.
Recipe information
Total Time
1 hour 30 minutes plus cooling
Yield
8 servings
Ingredients
Eggplant and Lamb
8
½
2
2
3
2½
½
2
2
1
2
1
1
¾
1
Béchamel and Assembly
6
½
2½
¾
4
2
3
Preparation
Eggplant and Lamb
Step 1
Place a rack in middle of oven; preheat to 475°. Whisk half of the garlic, ½ cup oil, 1 Tbsp. mint, and 1 Tbsp. oregano in a small bowl. Brush both sides of eggplant rounds with herb oil, making sure to get all the herbs and garlic onto eggplant; season with salt and pepper. Transfer eggplant to a rimmed baking sheet (it’s okay to pile the rounds on top of each other) and roast until tender and browned, 35–45 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 400°.
Step 2
Meanwhile, heat remaining 2 Tbsp. oil in a large wide pot over high. Cook lamb, breaking up with a spoon, until browned on all sides and cooked through and liquid from meat is evaporated (there will be a lot of rendered fat), 12–16 minutes. Strain fat through a fine-mesh sieve into a clean small bowl and transfer lamb to a medium bowl. Reserve 3 Tbsp. lamb fat; discard remaining fat.
Step 3
Heat 2 Tbsp. lamb fat in same pot over medium-high (reserve remaining 1 Tbsp. lamb fat for assembling the moussaka). Add onion, cinnamon, 2½ tsp. salt, and ½ tsp. pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, until onion is tender and translucent, 8–10 minutes. Add chiles and remaining garlic and cook, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pot, until onion is golden brown, about 5 minutes. Add paprika and tomato paste and cook until brick red in color, about 1 minute. Add wine and cook, stirring occasionally, until slightly reduced and no longer smells of alcohol, about 3 minutes. Add tomatoes and break up with a wooden spoon into small pieces (the seeds will shoot out at you if you’re too aggressive, so start slowly—puncture the tomato, then get your smash and break on!). Add lamb and remaining 1 Tbsp. mint and 1 Tbsp. oregano and cook, stirring occasionally, until most of the liquid is evaporated and mixture looks like a thick meat sauce, 5–7 minutes. Pluck out and discard cinnamon stick.
Béchamel and Assembly
Step 4
Heat butter in a medium saucepan over medium until foaming. Add flour and cook, whisking constantly, until combined, about 1 minute. Whisk in warm milk and bring sauce to a boil. Cook béchamel, whisking often, until very thick (it should have the consistency of pudding), about 5 minutes; stir in salt. Remove from heat and whisk in farmer cheese and half of the Pecorino. Let sit 10 minutes for cheese to melt, then add egg yolks and vigorously whisk until combined and béchamel is golden yellow.
Step 5
Brush a 13x9" baking pan with remaining 1 Tbsp. lamb fat. Layer half of eggplant in pan, covering the bottom entirely. Spread half of lamb mixture over eggplant in an even layer. Repeat with remaining eggplant and lamb to make another layer of each. Top with béchamel and smooth surface; sprinkle with remaining Pecorino.
Step 6
Bake moussaka until bubbling vigorously and béchamel is browned in spots, 30–45 minutes. Let cool 30 minutes before serving.
Do Ahead: Moussaka can be baked 1 day ahead. Let cool, then cover and chill, or freeze up to 3 months. Thaw before reheating in a 250° oven until warmed through, about 1 hour.
Editor’s note: This recipe was originally published in September 2017. Head this way for more of our favorite casserole dishes →
Leave a Review
Reviews (46)
Back to TopI have now made this four times. I am obsessed with it. It easily makes one of the top five recipes that I have in my rotation. While this is not a quick project, it's definitely an easy one, and I appreciate how all the different components come together. I actually puree my garlic with a mortar & pestle rather than grate it -- I've cut my fingers a few too many times on slippery garlic pieces. I also put a baking sheet under the casserole dish in case of spills or drippings bubbling over the edge!
Anonymous
Chicago
3/6/2019
With changes. Flavors were WONDERFUL! The lamb sauce rich and the custard was devine! (didn't use the farmer's cheese) However, the eggplant was hard as can happen. I would just salt to remove the water, then toss with the mint and oregano (I used fresh from our garden) plus the garlic and olive and let marinate. That way the eggplants would soften in the casserole when it was cooking.
Anonymous
Bainbridge Island, WA
6/10/2019
This was delicious but definitely takes a while (as I think any moussaka recipe does). I followed the recipe as written with the exception of adding rosemary (always a good idea with lamb), one layer of potatoes, and 2 egg yolks in the bechamel rather than 3 because I was worried it would bake into more of an omelette texture than I wanted. The bechamel was absolutely perfect! The lamb sauce, however, produced A TON of liquid in the pan - I transferred a fair amount of liquid when I layered but it should probably be strained out if you just use a slotted spoon to transfer the lamb sauce when you build your layers. Also, the recipe as written turns the eggplant into mush; next time I'll take it out after 15-20 mins, otherwise there's no structure and the layers disappear. My potato idea wasn't great - they didn't add anything. BA clearly had the right idea leaving them out!
bikeinabox
Oakland, CA
3/31/2020
Delicious! Worth all the time that is needed to make it. I substituted the eggplant with zucchini and love it. Looking forward to making it with eggplants as well.
Anonymous
Toronto
4/3/2020
Delicious but I feel quite certain that the oven temperature for cooking the eggplant is a typo. I only cooked them for 40 minutes and the bottoms were burned black. I think it should be 425, not 475, and even then I recommend checking the bottoms after 35 minutes. I see no reason that the eggplant needs to be cooked to death. I also added some fresh grated nutmeg to the Bechamel sauce. I've made this with other recipes before that used nutmeg and I loved the flavor.
Jeffrey Lavin
Longmont, CO
4/14/2020
This was delicious! Made mostly as written but I simplified the bechamel second step a bit, just threw in a bunch of feta, did not add the egg yolks or wait 10 minutes as it melted immediately. Also I used 1.3 lbs of ground beef instead of 2 lbs of lamb as that's what I had on hand. I agree with the other poster that the eggplant timing is touchy. I did 35 minutes at 475 and it was perfect, but I did it on two sheets and learned the hard way that you need to pull it from the oven right at 35 minutes (for the second sheet I turned the oven off but didn't take the baking sheet out immediately, and that eggplant was burnt on the bottom). I like to add nutmeg to bechamel but didn't this time and it was great. Really amazing flavors in this recipe.
mollyo
Seattle
7/30/2020
This is an amazing recipe! Super flavorful and so yummy, very easy to follow, and the measurements are right on the money for a 9x13 pan. I actually modified this recipe based on a tip from my SIL to make it vegetarian by subbing out the two pounds of ground lamb for just over two pounds of white mushrooms (stems removed and sliced). All the other steps can be kept the same except the mushrooms didn't need to be strained, and I later subbed in butter wherever it called for lamb fat. Highly recommend if you're looking for a quick modification to this dish, it was incredibly tasty. I also agree with other reviewers: the recipe is time intensive, but easy. There are several steps that you could parallelize if you had a second set of hands in the kitchen to cut the time down (e.g. prepping the eggplant to go in the oven while someone else starts the stovetop portions, and after that starting the beschamel earlier, etc.), because while my hands were almost always busy, each of the parts were generally just waiting on me. As far as a time estimate, it took me almost exactly three and a half hours (including the 30 minute cool down at the end) by myself -- however, it was my first time making something like this, and I did have some friends to chat with and a drink to slow me down, so you might be able to make it faster, haha!
lgulland
San Mateo, CA
9/20/2020