24 Delicious Eggplant Recipes You Can Enjoy All Year Long (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to cooking eggplant? ›

Eggplants are known to absorb a lot of fat while cooking. A useful tip to prevent sogginess and greasiness is to salt sliced or diced eggplant and let it sit for an hour. This helps to draw out moisture. Next, rinse and drain any liquid from the sliced eggplant, then pat dry before cooking.

One of the most popular was the long, thin, purple eggplant from Taiwan known as Ping Tung. This is an exceptional eggplant with sweet, pleasant tasting flesh. The plants are incredibly prolific and produce throughout the entire season.

Why do you soak eggplant in water and vinegar? Soaking eggplant in water and vinegar helps remove some of the vegetable's natural bitterness. This step also helps preserve some of the skin's color so it stays a vibrant purple even after cooking.

The oil still left in the eggplant tissues contributes to the soft, buttery texture that's so appealing. Oil also carries the essence of added herbs and spices, so that eggplant dishes can become rich with the aromas and heady flavors of onions, peppers, anchovies, parsley, garlic, and lemon juice.

During peak growing seasons, when there's an abundance of eggplants, prices tend to be lower. Conversely, during off-seasons or when supply is limited, prices may rise due to increased demand. The cost of eggplants can also vary based on where they are grown and distributed.

In our summer trials, Millionaire had ripe fruit before many of the other eggplant varieties were even flowering! The healthy, upright plants produce extraordinary harvests of deep purple, slender fruit, 8 inches long. This exquisite Japanese variety is tender and delicious with a minimal seed cavity.

Though salting works when you want the eggplant to be creamy and tender — such as with parmigiana — in those cases where you want the eggplant to retain its shape and have a slightly firmer texture — such as ratatouille — you can skip it.

First recorded in 1763, the word "eggplant" was originally applied to white cultivars, which look very much like hen's eggs (see image). Similar names are widespread in other languages, such as the Icelandic term eggaldin or the Welsh planhigyn ŵy.

Lusterless and shriveling exteriorA ripe, safe-to-eat eggplant looks really shiny and has tight, smooth skin. If your eggplant has lost its luster and/or looks wrinkly, it's past its prime and no longer good to cook with. Keep an eye out for brown spots around your eggplant, too.

What country eats the most eggplant? ›

China (34M tonnes) constituted the country with the largest volume of eggplant consumption, accounting for 67% of total volume.

Brining (soaking in salted water) will do the same job but also make the flesh super creamy. To brine, dissolve 1 tablespoon of salt in 1 cup of boiling water, stir in 1 litre of cold water, and drop in the sliced eggplant. Place a saucepan lid on top to keep it submerged, leave for 1 hour, then drain and pat dry.

“The absorptiveness of eggplant can be reduced by collapsing its spongy structure before frying,” he writes. Which you can do by microwaving it before frying (!) or salting slices that'll draw out the water and close up those air pockets, giving you a firmer flesh to work with.