Briam is a hearty dish full of hearty Greek roasted vegetables in extra virgin olive oil goodness. It is a traditional dish with eggplants, potatoes, zucchini, tomatoes, and onions slow roasting together and developing delicious flavors.

If you love these Briam-Greek Roasted Vegetables, you will also love this Boureki-Potato & Zucchini Pie, classic Greek savory pie-Hortopita, or Greek Green Beans-Fasolakia Ladera!

Greek roasted vegetables in a baking pan, partial view of a bowl with feta cheese, and a small bowl with chili flakes.

Overview

Why this recipe sings

Briam is a roasted vegetable dish where the ingredients are the stars and truly shine. Eggplants, potatoes, zucchini, and onions are simply seasoned with sea salt, freshly ground pepper, and dried oregano, then roasted for a couple of hours in a tomato-extra virgin olive oil sauce. While the veggies slow roast, their flavors mingle together perfectly and create a phenomenal dish.

Greeks enjoy briam as a main dish with lots of feta cheese and crusty bread. It can also be an awesome side dish next to grilled proteins or a roast.

Here is what you need

All the ingredients for making bream, Greek roasted vegetables.

Eggplant. One large eggplant or two medium ones are all you need.
Zucchini. One large zucchini or two small ones are enough.
Potatoes. Any potato can be used. If you go for Yukon Gold, you can leave the skin on as it is very thin and edible.
Tomatoes. In the summer, grate a couple of juicy ripe tomatoes. The rest of the year, good quality canned tomatoes are great.
Broth. Choose vegetable or chicken broth. If you go for the latter, the recipe will be vegan.
Fresh herbs. Fresh oregano and thyme are ideal. Parsley will work as well.
Onion, garlic, extra virgin olive oil, sea salt, freshly ground pepper, and dried oregano. These basic pantry ingredients are used in almost all our recipes.

How to make it

Prepare your vegetables. Slice the zucchini and eggplant, and potatoes into coins, if the eggplant is too large, cut the eggplant coins in half.

Roughly chop the garlic and halve and slice the onion.

Stacked sliced vegetables in a blue baking pan.

Add all the veggies to a large bowl (or you can use the baking pan), season with sea salt, and add half the olive oil all over. Mix gently.

Start stacking the veggies upwards in a large baking pan. Mix them together as you stack.

A briam right before the oven with stacked vegetables filling a baking pan, with fresh herbs and crushed tomatoes on top.

Place tomatoes in a bowl, crush them with your hand and add them between the vegetables. Add another generous pinch of oregano and season again with salt and freshly ground pepper.

Add the rest of the olive oil and the broth and some fresh herb sprigs between the veggies.

Cover with aluminum foil and bake for an hour and thirty minutes.

Remove the cover and bake for another hour and thirty minutes.

Remove from heat, let it sit for 20 min. Adjust salt and pepper to taste.

How to have perfectly roasted vegetables.

I recommend checking the food while cooking to ensure it is done as it should. The potatoes need to be fully cooked, soft, and buttery with nice crispy edges.
Please don’t disturb the veggies while they cook too much; the zucchini and eggplant should retain their shape.
The sauce should not be thin and watery. In Greece, we say we want the sauce and veggies to “melosei,” which means it’s like honey. It does not literally mean the food becomes sweet. All the flavors mellow out from the herbs, tomatoes, and olive oil and are slightly sweet, savory, and delicious.

Close up of Greek roasted vegetables in a baking pan.

Briam is the kind of food you can’t keep your hands off. It eats well at room temperature, so you might find yourself in the kitchen more often, sneaking out a potato or dipping a piece of bread in that glorious sauce.

This is a lovely dish with the aroma of Greece and endless summers.

What baking pan to use

For this recipe, I used an oval ceramic roasting pan from Dansk with measurements 13.75″ L x 8.00″ W x 2.00″ H, 64 oz.

A medium baking pan of a similar weight capacity should work fine. It is not necessary to be oval or round; a rectangle will work just fine.

A ceramic baking pan with Briam, serving spoons, next to the pan a loaf of bread, a cloth napkin and small bowl with chili flakes.

Tips and tricks

It is absolutely ok to use the vegetables you have in your pantry. Don’t hesitate to substitute vegetables for the ones you have in your pantry. You can add sliced bell peppers, all colors, as well as yellow squash and mushrooms. Add okra or even cauliflower. It will be delicious.
Adding vegetable broth instead of chicken makes this Briam vegan.
If you don’t have broth, use one or two bouillon cubes diluted in warm water. If none is available, just water will do fine.
Briam can also be cooked on the stove in a large pot. Follow the same steps apart from stacking the slices; that is unnecessary in this case. Feel free to cut the veggies differently, into medium cubes, for example. Cook in medium-low heat and keep an eye out often in case you need to adjust liquids.
Use good quality canned tomatoes. The best are Gustarosso San Marzano DOP. They can be expensive, so they don’t fit everyone’s budget. Please feel free to use your preferred canned tomatoes.
It is better to buy whole tomatoes in a can instead of diced. They are more versatile, and the quality is better (pre-diced tend to have lots of liquid in them, and sometimes they are not as ripe). You can use them whole, crush them, dice them, and turn them into sauce yourself.
Mix a teaspoon of sugar or honey with crushed tomatoes before mixing with the veggies. It is not necessary to do with authentic San Marzano tomatoes.