Crispy Baked Eggplant Recipe (2024)

FAQs

How do you cook eggplant without getting soggy? ›

A useful tip to prevent sogginess and greasiness is to salt sliced or diced eggplant and let it sit for an hour.

It will, however, help the spongy flesh absorb less oil and crisp up like a dream. To salt, just slice the eggplant into rounds, scatter 1 teaspoon of salt on top, leave for 30 minutes, then pat dry. Brining (soaking in salted water) will do the same job but also make the flesh super creamy.

Not cooking it in enough fat.

You need to be a little more generous in order for there to be enough oil on the outside of the eggplant to cook properly.

While the skin of a small young eggplant is edible, the skin becomes bitter on larger or older eggplants and should be peeled. When in doubt, the answer to, "Do you peel eggplant before cooking?" is yes, peel it. Use a vegetable peeler or paring knife to remove the skin.

"When you lay them on the tray to roast, make sure they're in a single layer and give them enough room to roast properly. Eggplant is about 80 to 90 percent water, so when you put them in the oven they need space to evaporate all that water and caramelize properly," says Covarrubias.

Mushy veggies are also often the result of overcooking. When the interior is loaded with moisture, you have to cook it for much longer to evaporate all of the water and avoid the interior having the unappealing, spongy, raw texture that eggplant and zucchini are notorious for.

Not necessarily; it depends on what you're looking for in the finished dish. 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.

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.

It's likely just been exposed to air and is experiencing enzymatic browning. An eggplant with brown spots is not safe to eat if it contains bugs or mold or exhibits other signs of spoilage. It should be thrown out.

When it's cooked, “it should turn fully tender, all the flesh should be somewhat custardy. If you have to, hammer it a bit, knock it around, let it start to collapse.” When you're roasting eggplant, like in YuChen's recipe, “make sure you give them enough space so they can cook evenly,” she says.

Why is my baked eggplant bitter? ›

Eggplants can have the alkaloid solanine, which can give it a bitter taste. “Another compound possibly contributing to eggplant's bitterness is anthocyanin, which is a phytochemical that gives eggplant its pretty purple hue and can act like an antioxidant when we consume it,” says Nichole Dandrea-Russert, MS, RDN.

However, if you can't get your head around cooking eggplant without salting it, here's how: sprinkle the cubed eggplant with 1 tsp salt, toss, leave in colander for 30 minutes. Rinse then thoroughly pat dry, toss with oil and pepper (NO SALT), roast per recipe.

Another argument in favor of salting claims that it draws moisture out of the eggplant's cells that will, in turn, block the absorption of oil during cooking. But we know from experience that a salted eggplant still soaks up quite a bit of oil. So, in the end, we're with Clee on this one: don't sweat it.

Depending on the recipe, you might want to slice and salt globe eggplant slices before cooking them in order to draw out some of the water and keep them from turning to mush.

Wrap each eggplant in a paper towel or inside a paper bag with the top left open. That way the fruits can still breathe, and the paper will absorb any excess moisture that could cause them to unduly soften.