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    Creamy Goat Cheese Polenta With Ratatouille

    June 17, 2023

    Ratatouille—a classic combination of late summer vegetables, cooked to tender perfection—is an ideal partner for creamy goat cheese polenta. Together, they’re the vegetarian dinner of your dreams!

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    Creamy Goat Cheese Polenta With Ratatouille, pine nuts, fresh basil and parmesan cheese

    How To Up Your Meatless Monday Game: Ratatouille with Polenta

    Classic French ratatouille sounds fancy, but is actually a simple, lovely way of cooking vegetables that are all in season at the same time together in a single pan. We’ve long been fans of ratatouille—particularly of our own easy ratatouille recipe—but we became ratatouille fanatics when we started serving it atop bowls of super creamy, cheesy goat cheese polenta. Together, they make a dinner that’s at once hearty and warming, fresh and oh-so-flavorful.

    vegetables for ratatouille eggplant, yellow squash, zucchini, Roma tomatoes bell peppers and thyme

    What Is Ratatouille?

    Ratatouille is a classic French Provençal stew that’s inherently vegetarian, and wonderfully rich. Traditional ratatouille ingredients are a celebration of late summer-early autumn garden bounty: eggplants, zucchini, tomatoes, onions, peppers. They’re cooked slowly, with olive oil and sometimes a few carefully chosen herbs—we’re using garlic, basil and thyme—until they’re almost meltingly tender, and all the flavors of mingled and merged into one cohesive, summery stew-casserole hybrid.

    How to Make Ratatouille

    Some ratatouille recipes call for you to prep and cook the eggplants, zucchini, tomatoes, onions, pepper each separately at first, but we’re all about simplification—as you know—so we say you can just go ahead and cook them all at the same time. Just be sure to slice the vegetables into pieces that are all roughly the same size before you arrange and bake the ratatouille, so that they cook at the same rate. Other than that little shortcut, though, our slow-roasted ratatouille recipe is as classic as can be. Here’s how to make it:

    1. Slice the eggplant, tomatoes, peppers, onions and zucchini.
    2. Arrange the slices vertically in your dish—alternating the veggies until the dish is full. Is it weird that we think of this as the fun part? Season and drizzle with oil
    3. Bake! 375° F for 45 minutes.
    4. Start on the polenta by bringing the bring the cornmeal, salt, pepper, milk and stock to a simmer. Once it’s simmering, add the goat cheese.
    5. Serve! Polenta goes into big bowls, and top each bowl with a generous serving of the ratatouille, remaining goat cheese, pine nuts and fresh basil.
    Ratatouille in a cast iron baking dish with a striped linen

    What Do You Serve Ratatouille With?

    We’d like you to meet our friend, cheesy polenta. We’ve talked it up enough by now, you’re probably itching to know more about this cheesy polenta thing, right? Polenta is a classic partner for ratatouille—it makes a sunny, warm, delicious bed for all that veggie goodness, and we’ve made it even more flavorful and fabulous by adding goat cheese. It doesn’t just add creaminess, goat cheese also adds a hint of tangy sharpness that is a terrific compliment to the smooth richness of the polenta and slow-roasted tenderness of the ratatouille. Plus, other than salt and pepper, it only has four ingredients:

    • Polenta (vegetable or chicken)
    • Stock
    • Whole milk
    • Goat cheese
    Creamy Goat Cheese Polenta With Ratatouille toasted pine nuts and basil

    Tools You’ll Need:

    More Easy Zucchini Recipes to Try:

    Creamy Goat Cheese Polenta With Ratatouille toasted pine nuts and basil
    Creamy Goat Cheese Polenta With Ratatouille toasted pine nuts and basil in a bowl

    Ratatouille—Not Just A Movie!

    Sometimes the very best meals come from just using what you have in your kitchen and your garden, and thinking a little outside the box. This ratatouille with polenta is proof of that. We’d love to hear about your favorite creations that were born from using what you had on hand! Share a photo and tag us on Instagram using @themodernproper and #themodernproper so that we can see your stuff! Happy eating!

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    Creamy Goat Cheese Polenta With Ratatouille

    Updated on June 17, 2023

    • Serves:  6
    • Prep Time:  20 min
    • Cook Time:  45 min
    • Calories:  513
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    Ingredients

    Ratatouille

    • 4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
    • 1 garlic clove, halved
    • 1 small globe eggplant, cut into ¼-inch-thick slices
    • 1 medium zucchini, cut into ¼-inch-thick slices
    • 1 medium yellow squash, cut into ¼-inch-thick slices
    • 1 yellow, red, or orange bell pepper cut into ¼-inch-thick slices
    • 4 Roma tomatoes, cut into ¼-inch-thick slices
    • 1 large yellow onion, thinly sliced
    • 1 teaspoon garlic powder
    • 1 teaspoon kosher sea salt
    • Freshly cracked black pepper, to taste
    • 5 sprigs fresh thyme, leaves removed

    Polenta

    • 6 cups chicken or vegetable stock
    • 2 cups whole milk, plus more as needed
    • 1½ teaspoons kosher salt
    • ½ teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper
    • 1½ cups stone-ground polenta or yellow cornmeal
    • 8 ounces goat cheese
    • ¼ cup toasted pine nuts
    • 10 to 12 fresh basil leaves, minced

    Method

    1. Make the ratatouille. Preheat the oven to 375°F with a rack in the center position. Grease an 8 x 8-inch baking dish with 2 tablespoons of the olive oil and rub the cut sides of the garlic clove all over the bottom and sides. Discard the garlic clove.

    2. On a clean work surface, spread out the eggplant, zucchini, squash, bell pepper, tomato, and onion. Drizzle them with the remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil and sprinkle with the garlic powder, salt, and black pepper to taste. Toss to coat.

    3. Arrange the vegetable slices, alternating the eggplant, zucchini, squash, bell pepper and tomato in a circular pattern, working from the outer edge to the center of the pan. Scatter on the thyme leaves.

    4. Cover and bake for 20 minutes, then uncover and continue baking until the vegetables are tender, about 25 more minutes.

    5. Meanwhile, make the polenta. In a medium pan, combine the stock, milk, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce the heat to medium and slowly whisk in the polenta.

    6. Cook, stirring often, until the polenta begins to pull away from the sides of the pan, about 30 minutes.

    7. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in 6 ounces of the goat cheese. If you'd like the polenta a bit thinner, stir in a bit more milk.

    8. To serve, divide the polenta evenly among six bowls and spoon on a generous serving of the ratatouille. Top with additional goat cheese crumbled, toasted pine nuts, and basil.

    Nutrition Info

    • Per Serving
    • Amount
    • Calories 513
    • Protein 18 g
    • Carbohydrates 56 g
    • Total Fat 25 g
    • Dietary Fiber 8 g
    • Cholesterol 45 mg
    • sodium 1213 mg
    • Total Sugars 12 g

    Creamy Goat Cheese Polenta With Ratatouille

    Questions & Reviews

    Join the discussion below.

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    • kelley

      Is there a non-dairy option that I could swap out for the whole milk? My husband is lactose intolerant.

      We haven't tested it but you could try dairy alternative such as oat milk etc...

    • Lori

      This looks wonderful and plan on making it tonight. Fist time making polenta...curious how to treat leftovers? Many thanks!

      You can add in a small amount of water, stock, or milk if necessary and beat in with a whisk until liquid is fully incorporated and no lumps remain. Hope you enjoy Lori!

    • Kristen

      Turned out awesome with cornmeal, as I couldn't find Polenta anywhere. Highly recommend the cornmeal version :)

      Sounds great!

    • Katherine

      Hi there - my grocery store only has pre-cooked polenta. Can I still cook with the chkn stock and milk/goat cheese to add flavor?

      Hi Katherine! Unfortunately, it doesn't sound like that would work. However, if your grocery store stocks regular old cornmeal, that would work in place of the polenta! Cornmeal and polenta are essentially the same thing (sometimes the coarseness of the grain is slightly different, but it'll work!).

    • Susan

      This recipe was fantastic! Beautiful presentation and extremely tasty. My family was super impressed!

      Thanks Susan, so glad you enjoyed it!

    • Stephanie

      The polenta was delicious! Next time I would cut the veggies into smaller, bite-sized pieces so they would roast better. Would definitely make again!

      Thanks Stephanie! We are happy you enjoyed it!

    • Kelley

      I made the recipe with Lactaid whole milk and it was delicious! This one is definitely going into my recipe collection.

      Thanks Kelley, so glad you enjoyed this one!

    • Eric

      I made this for my girlfriend because I am wanting to explore creative vegetarian recipes for her. I guess I bought precooked polenta and didn’t realize that I bought the wrong thing until I read the questions down here. However, I used the precooked polenta instructions in order to make it creamy with milk or broth, and I added the goat cheese into that. I personally don’t like most of the vegetables in this dish, but my girlfriend loved it.

      Glad you were able to make it work Eric and so happy your girlfriend loved it!

    • vivian

      this was delicious, although my eggpant didn't cook through :(. I cut it very thin, so I think next time I would precook the eggplant. The whole idea, though, is lovely, and so comforting. Thanks for a good recipe!

      Thanks Vivian, so glad to hear you enjoyed it! Sorry to hear about the eggplant.