Briami – Greek-style roasted vegetables

Briami – a simple and quick to make Greek-style vegetable casserole. The vegetables – eggplant/aubergine, zucchini, tomatoes, potatoes, and onions – are roasted in the oven and come out tender but still a bit crunchy. The dish is seasoned with oregano, mint, parsley, olives, lemon zest and plenty of good olive oil and covered with melted, slightly gooey and crispy golden cheese on top!

This dish is similar to the French vegetable stew – Ratatouille.

This recipe is my twist on the traditional briami recipe. I ate this dish a few times in Greek restaurants and loved it. However, the vegetables were more stewed and softer. The vegetables can also be stewed on the stovetop, but I like the roasted version more. It’s also usually served with feta cheese.

This dish is very simple and quick to make! In a nutshell, all you need to do is to chop the vegetables and aromatics, toss them with olive oil, season, sprinkle with cheese and bake!

Ingredients:

Vegetables: You can basically use any vegetables you like but according to the tradition briami should consist of following vegetables: potatoes, zucchini, eggplant/aubergine, onion, tomato, and bell pepper.

Aromatics: this is what makes this casserole Greek and super aromatic: lots of garlic (don‘t worry, it won‘t be too garlicky, roasted garlic loses its harsh taste), good olive oil, fresh parsley and mint, lemon juice and zest – they brighten up the whole dish.

Cheese: Briami is usually served with feta cheese. I used pecorino cheese because this is how I ate this dish for the first time and loved it. This is one of my favorite cheeses, its taste resembles parmesan, but it‘s more intense as it’s made from sheep’s milk, not cow’s milk. Although it’s not a typical Greek cheese (it’s Italian), it works great here and tastes similar to some Greek cheeses (eg kefalograviera). I used semi-hard Pecorino variety – Pecorino Toscano, it melts nicely on the vegetables.

You can also use easily available feta cheese – it can be crumbled directly over the roasted vegetables or added to the casserole 5 minutes before the end of baking time. Originally, the dish is served rather with the feta cheese, but if you try the delicious, melted pecorino cheese, it’s possible you won‘t go back!

When I was making these photos I used pecorino with olives but sometimes I buy regular pecorino (without the flavorings) and add additionally the olives.

Step by step instructions:

Briami is so simple to make, yet so aromatic and flavorful!

STEP 1: Gather all the ingredients.

2. So now you need to chop all the vegetables and aromatics: Cut the zucchini into 1 cm / ½ inch slices, aubergine/eggplant into 2 cm / 1 inch cubes, potatoes into 0.5 cm / ¼ inch slices, onions into 0.5 cm / ¼ inch half-moons, garlic into very thin slices, slice the olives, finely chop the parsley, grate and juice the lemon.

3. Toss the vegetables with olive oil, season with lemon juice, lemon zest, parsley, mint, sprinkle with olives.

It’s important to place the cheese and garlic on top – if not, they can burn at the bottom of the tray.

It’s ready to be roasted. Pop the baking tray in the oven and roast at 200°C / 400°F for about 30 minutes.

The size of the tray is also important. So, if your tray is bigger than mine add a little water so that the vegetables won’t burn and stick to the bottom of the tray. If the baking sheet is smaller – the vegetables will be a little overcrowded and won’t brown properly.

If you want to add feta cheese instead of pecorino cheese, add crumbled feta 5 minutes before the end of baking time or just after the vegetables have been baked.

4. This is how it should like! Tender full of flavor vegetables with crunchy, caramelized edges and melted golden cheese on top.

If your casserole is not really browned though, you can increase the temperature and bake it a little longer or put the tray under the broiler and bake until everything is golden brown.

Enjoy!

Recipe credit: This is a modified recipe from this blog.

How to serve briami:

You can serve this as a main dish (for as these are 2 servings) or as a side dish (it would be enough for 4-6 people). You can serve it for example with chicken (like this Lemon Thyme Chicken Breast – baked in the oven) or fried eggs.

Storage:

This dish can be easily reheated. Bake it in an oven preheated to 320°F/160°C until warm.

Other delicious sheet pan dinner recipes you may love:

• sheet pan chicken fajitas
• Whole roasted trout with potatoes, asparagus, and thyme-garlic dip
• Baked chicken with apples and onions

Did you make this recipe? Let me know how you liked it and give it a star rating in the comments below! You can also add a photo of your creation!