Slow Cooker Ratatouille
Plus Ratatouille Pasta
Ratatouille is a Provençal vegetable stew from the south of France using summer garden vegetables. It is traditionally served as a cold or room-temp side dish, but we like to toss warm ratatouille with pasta and olives—à la Jacques Pépin. Here we make easy Slow Cooker Ratatouille and turn it into Ratatouille Pasta for a quick weeknight meal.
The traditional method for cooking ratatouille involves roasting each vegetable separately, then combining into a stew. But cooking the vegetables together at the same time works for Chef Jacques Pépin, so it works for us! Ratatouille is easy to prepare in the slow cooker, simply cook the stew until the vegetables reach the consistency you prefer.
See the cooking notes regarding the optional step of salting squash and eggplant.
Slow Cooker Ratatouille
Ingredients
3 medium summer squash, such as zucchini or yellow squash — If salting, quarter lengthwise and if desired remove the seed core. If not salting, dice.
1 medium eggplant, ends cut off, with skin on — If salting, cut into rounds. If not salting, dice.
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus more as needed
2 medium yellow onions, diced
3 bell peppers, yellow, red, or green, diced
5 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 14.5-oz can petite diced tomatoes, drained
1 bundle of fresh thyme, tied with butcher's twine
Salt and pepper, to taste
1/3 cup fresh parsley
Instructions
Optional step. Place cut zucchini and eggplant in a bowl or colander over the sink. Sprinkle kosher salt all over the veggies. Let this sit for at least 15 minutes. Rinse the salt off of the veggies. Pat the pieces dry. Proceed with dicing these veggies. Read more below.
Heat the oil in your slow cooker if it has the ability or use a pan on the stove. Add the onions and bell peppers. Sauté for about 5 minutes until beginning to soften. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute. Add the zucchini, eggplant, tomatoes, thyme, salt and pepper. Cover and cook on HIGH for 2-3 hours or LOW for 3-5 hours, or until the vegetables reach desired consistency. Stir in parsley and more olive oil if desired.
At this point you could refrigerate the dish, or let it sit out and cool to room-temp before serving as a side dish or appetizer, or serve warm with pasta as shown below. See the cooking notes for other serving suggestions.
Ratatouille Pasta
Watch Chef Pépin prepare Ratatouille Pasta in this video. He chops the vegetables into larger pieces. But we prefer a smaller 1/2” dice when tossing ratatouille with pasta, as it ensures a medley of veggies in every bite and helps younger eaters enjoy the dish too. The size of the cut vegetables can impact how long you cook the stew. Make sure to cut the ingredients to a uniform size.
Ingredients
1 recipe Ratatouille (above)
1 pound cooked pasta, like a penne
1/2 cup grated fresh parmesan, or more to taste
1/3 - 1/2 cup pitted Kalamata olives, sliced
Instructions
Toss desired amount of warm ratatouille (we use the full recipe) with pasta, parmesan, olives, and additional olive oil if desired.
If desired, reserve some of the pasta cooking water to loosen the dish.
If you need to serve a larger group, just cook extra pasta and add more olives and parm.
Cooking Notes
How long to cook? Cook the vegetables to your desired consistency. While you don’t want crunchy vegetables, and soft would be traditional, Chef Pépin points out that cooks now keep ratatouille vegetables a little firmer than they used to.
Short on time? You can throw everything into your slow cooker at the same time without precooking — just note that the end result will be softer because of the extra time needed to fully cook the onions and peppers. Sautéing the onions and peppers just a bit ensures all veggies are done at the same time and adds a deeper flavor.
Fresh tomatoes. Of course you can use fresh summer tomatoes! But this is the one ingredient you can skip chopping if you are in a hurry. Use a high-quality canned tomato.
Movie version. If you want to recreate the signature dish from the Pixar movie Ratatouille, then you will make a variation called Confit Byaldi.
Leftover ratatouille? It will last in your fridge for up to 5 days. The flavor of ratatouille improves overnight in the refrigerator and is often served cold or room-temp as a side or appetizer. It is delicious as a side dish for meat or fish. Or as a vegetarian main dish with warm crusty bread, polenta, rice, or couscous. It is also great with omelettes.
Salting Squash and Eggplant
Pre-salting the eggplant and squash is optional. This step removes some water from these vegetables, which decreases the wateriness of the final dish.
If you start with this step, it really shouldn’t take too much extra time. Salt your sliced squash and eggplant, then continue chopping the other veggies and begin sautéing your onions and peppers. While the onion and peppers are cooking, you can start to rinse/dry/dice the eggplant and squash.
Don’t have time to salt your veggies? That is fine. If the final dish is more watery than you prefer, then at the end simmer the stew without the lid to reduce the liquid. Chef Pépin does not salt his veggies in the video below.
Watch How to Make Ratatouille
The always delightful Jacques Pépin makes a quick ratatouille and serves it with pasta, parmesan, olives and “of course a couple of glasses of wine” — he chooses a California Syrah. The video begins with him chopping the veggies, then skip to 18:45 to watch him plate the dish two ways.
Watch How to Make Confit Byaldi
Binging with Babish shows how to prepare the version of ratatouille known as Confit Byaldi.
