5:2 Caponata

I love caponata. A rich sweet-sour sauce enveloping fried vegetables, swimming in olive oil: I ate plates and plates of the stuff when I was in Sicily last year. I like to think it's relatively healthy, but I hadn't considered that it might be an uber-low-cal recipe for a 5:2 fast day dinner. However, BBC Good Food magazine had a pepper-based caponata recipe which they'd managed to squeeze in under 300 cals, which made me reconsider.

I know it's not essential, but I like aubergines in my caponata, slippery and soft against the crunchy celery. With onion and tomatoes, that's a lot of low calorie but big and filling vegetables. That means you can afford to use an almost-generous amount of olive oil, a whole tablespoon per person. It's therefore worth using a decent oil. Sainsbury's do a Sicilian oil in their Taste the Difference range, which I'm currently working my way through. That would be suitably authentic, but do feel free to use your favourite oil.

Amounts below are precise because this is a calorie counting recipe: obviously, those without such constraints should feel free to add more of whatever (especially the oil) they want.


5:2 Caponata

100g celery stalks, sliced
1 small red onion (mine weighed 125g), finely diced
1/2 tin tomatoes, i.e., 200g
200g aubergine, cut into large chunks
2 tbs capers
1 tbs sultanas
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tbs olive oil
handful basil leaves


Add half the tablespoon of olive oil to a saucepan and heat, before throwing in the celery and onion. Keep it over a medium-high eat so that the onion browns nicely: you want to develop the sugar flavours. After ten minutes or so, the onion should be soft and sweet.

Tip in the tomatoes, aubergine, capers, sultanas, and oregano, together with a generous splash of water, and bring up to a gentle simmer. Pop the lid on and leave for half an hour, by which time the aubergines should be silky.

Remove from the heat and leave to cool slightly. Stir through the remaining half tablespoon of oil, and the basil leaves.


This comes to 350 calories; skipping the final half tablespoon of oil reduces that to 280.