Simple Keto Ratatouille (Vegan, Healthy)

This easy keto ratatouille recipe is a simple and hearty French Provence stew that is super simple and so delicious! We combine eggplant, tomatoes, zucchini, and spices into a flavorful stovetop dish. With our vegetable ratatouille stew, eating your vegetables is definitely a WHOLE LOTTA YUM!

 

Low Carb Ratatouille Recipe

Creating an easy low-carb ratatouille recipe has been one of my summer missions. With a bumper crop of homegrown tomatoes, zucchini, and basil, I had the perfect opportunity to perfect this ratatouille dish. And oh my! This has become our new favorite vegan meal that can be enjoyed year-round.

While using homegrown vegetables is great, all of the ingredients are easy to come by at the grocery store. And while these vegetables are so plentiful in August, enjoying a delicious hearty bowl of vegan ratatouille also makes the ultimate healthy comfort food in fall and winter too.

While some people prefer to bake keto ratatouille, my favorite is to follow the authentic ratatouille recipe of simmering it on the stovetop to make a hearty vegetable stew. While I'd consider this an easy ratatouille recipe since you mostly just chop, stir, and simmer, it does take a bit of time so it's best saved as a weekend dish.

Serve your keto ratatouille as a simple vegan or vegetarian dinner, or with this tasty beet salad with feta. You could also opt for a protein option, but still stay low-carb when, when you serve your vegetable ratatouille stew alongside pan-fried chicken tenders or air fryer pork chops.

Why You'll Love This!

• Filled with eggplant, zucchini, onion, bell peppers, and tomatoes, our keto ratatouille is bursting with all of the flavors of summer!
• Savory herbs, including Herbs de Provence and bay leaves, combine with your vegetables to make a mouth-watering vegetable ratatouille that any vegetable-lover will enjoy.
• Not only is this healthy ratatouille vegan, but it's also low-carb, gluten-free, paleo, dairy-free, vegetarian, and keto-friendly, too! Unless you are allergic to one of the ingerdients, our vegan ratatouille works for just about any health program.

Are you looking for more hearty and healthy vegetarian dishes to add to your rotation? Look no further than our Zucchini Curry, Broccoli Cheddar Fritters, and Broccoli Cheese Soup.

On Keto? Grab our FREE keto foods list here OR  Snag our Keto  Binder HERE

Ingredient Notes

The ratatouille ingredients are actually quite simple, you take a TON of chopped fresh vegetables, add savory herbs, and cook it down into a filling vegetable ratatouille.

• eggplant
• zucchini
• red onion
• red bell pepper
• tomatoes
• olive oil
• Bay leaf
• tomato paste
• Herbs de Provence
• sweetener - (optional)
• sea salt
• ground black pepper
• fresh basil

Step by Step Instructions

If you've been wondering how to make ratatouille, you'll be pleasantly surprised it's easier than it seems. The version I developed this summer on was inspired by Once Upon a Chef's ratatouille recipe of sauteeing the zucchini and eggplant first, simmering the rest of the ingredients, and then adding the other vegetables back in at the end. 

The reason I LOVE this method is that the ratatouille recipes that just simmer everything together lose the fresh summer flavor of perfectly cooked eggplant and zucchini. While simmering all of the ingredients together would still be a tasty ratatouille recipe, we personally preferred the bite of just cooked vegetables.

All of the vegetables get cut into ½" dice, while I usually prep ingredients in advance because there's time in between each step while the ratatouille is simmering, I dice as I go.

Cook Vegetables

Heat 2-3 tablespoon olive oil over medium heat in a large nonstick skillet.

Cut eggplant into ½” pieces. Add to a nonstick pan, sprinkle with salt and cook until lightly golden and soft, for about 10 minutes.

Keep stirring periodically while you keep prepping the other ingredients so that the eggplant doesn’t get too brown on the bottom.

Remove the eggplant to another dish and set it aside for now.

Cut the 1 lb zucchini into ½” or smaller pieces.

Add another tablespoon of olive oil to the pan if needed. Add the diced zucchini and sprinkle with salt. Cook the zucchini for about 3-4 minutes until crisp-tender.

Remove the zucchini and place it on the dish with the eggplant.

Dice the onion and red pepper and add to the large non-stick skillet. Sprinkle with a little more salt and cook for 5 minutes on medium heat until the onions are translucent and soften.

Add the garlic cloves and cook one more minute.

Assemble

Now add the tomatoes along with their juice and bring to a simmer on medium heat.

Add 1.5 tablespoon tomato paste, a pinch of sweetener (like sugar or stevia for low carb) and 1.5 teaspoon herbs de Provence, and ½ teaspoon black pepper.

I ended up adding 2 tablespoon tomato paste since I  was issuing extremely juicy fresh garden tomatoes. The store-bought tomatoes might not be as juicy and you’ll only need 1-1 ½ tbsp.

Continue cooking on medium for about 10 minutes until the tomatoes are cooked through and broken down into a sauce.

Combine & Finish

Add the zucchini and eggplant back to the pan, then the ¼ cup of chopped fresh basil. Simmer on medium-low until all the vegetables are cooked through and the flavors are blended; about 10 more minutes.

Adjust seasonings and add more salt and pepper, if needed.

Serve with a drizzle of olive oil and chopped fresh basil, if desired. Fresh parmesan would be another great garnish!

Makes 4 generous servings.

Recipe Tips

• We do recommend that you prep your vegetables by cutting them before you start cooking. This will make the sauteing and assembling of your keto ratatouille so much simpler.
• To keep the carbs down skip adding sweetener or use a pinch of keto-approved sweeteners like monk fruit or erythritol.
• To reduce the carbs even more cut the onion in half, it's the highest carb vegetable in the recipe.
• Ratatouille is often served as a vegan main dish recipe but due to the carbs for those following a low carb or keto health plan, we suggest that the low carb ratatouille recipe be served as a side dish instead along with protein like chicken, beef, pork chops, or Italian sausage.

Common Questions

More Vegetarian Recipes

Looking for more vegetarian recipes?

• Zucchini Curry (Vegan, Low Carb, Paleo)
• Roasted Beet Salad with Feta
• Broccoli Cheddar Fritters
• Broccoli Cheese Soup

Recipe