How to Make the Best Roasted Eggplant

Eggplant is a great vegetable for salads, dips, and side dishes, since it’s meaty and easily takes on the flavor of whatever it’s paired with. Raw, eggplant doesn’t taste like much, and can be somewhat bitter, but after a rapid roast with spices and herbs in the oven, it turns phenomenal. Even a basic upgrade with salt, pepper, and olive oil makes eggplant burst with flavor. It’s healthy too, with no saturated fat, and it’s ready in about 30 minutes.

Pretty much any herbs and spices you have on hand work wonderfully with roasted eggplant. You can’t go wrong with salt and pepper, fresh lemon juice, minced garlic or garlic powder, fresh parsley, and extra-virgin olive oil. Chef Erez Komarovsky gives his eggplant salad an Israeli-Mediterranean spin with tahini, pomegranate syrup, and olive oil, along with salt, lemon, and garlic. Green herbs like cilantro, basil, mint, dill, thyme, and parsley are great additions too. Roasted eggplant also works beautifully in omelets, pasta salads, and soups. A classic pasta pairing is Pasta alla Norma, a traditional Italian dish featuring eggplant cubes.

Remove the skin and mash roasted eggplant to make a spread or dip. Spread it on toast with ricotta or butter. Pair it with dairy like yogurt, topped with pomegranate, or with Parmesan. Some recipes call for pickled chiles for heat or balsamic vinaigrette for tartness. Eggplant goes well with many meats, whether grilled or roasted, and works just as well as the star of a vegetarian, vegan, or gluten-free main course or side dish.

Roasting eggplant takes about 30 to 45 minutes, depending on your oven temperature and how you cut it. Here’s the general method, before we get to Erez’s own technique below.

Prep and Roast

1. Trim off the stem with a knife, then slice the eggplant into cubes, rectangles, or steaks about an inch thick.
2. Season with salt (and, if you like, black pepper, olive oil, garlic powder, or paprika). If cubed, salt it in a colander first to draw out bitterness.
3. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and spread the eggplant out in a single layer.
4. Roast, flipping partway through, until caramelized outside and tender inside.

Oven Temperature and Roasting Time

Smaller, thinner-skinned eggplants like Japanese varieties roast faster; large globe eggplants take longer. Expect anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes depending on size and cut.

The oven method above isn’t the only way. For his eggplant salad, Erez skips the oven entirely and chars the eggplant whole, directly over an open burner, rather than cutting it into pieces first. After removing most of the skin, while keeping some charred flecks for smoky flavor, he places the whole eggplant on a decorative platter and scores it to the stem with a knife. His version stays in one piece from start to finish and never goes in the oven.

Tip: Because an eggplant before cooking can be bitter, simply rinsing your slices of eggplant with water and adding some salt can eliminate any bitterness in the taste. Because burned eggplant juices are naturally bitter, Erez says, you’ll want to put the eggplant into a colander and strain the liquid.

Tip: When using a colander, put your eggplant cubes on paper towels and, to dry the eggplant cubes, dab them with additional paper towels.

Trick: The key to roasting eggplant salad for your side dish, Erez says, is to make it smoky. To ensure your recipe has that smoky flavor, leave some of the burnt skin on the eggplant after you char it over an open fire. To make this recipe you’ll want to slice and open the eggplant – it’s very important that it is open, Erez emphasizes.

Fun Fact: While eggplants are used like vegetables in the kitchen, they are technically fruits – berries, in fact – as they have seeds and grow from flowers.

The most common eggplant in U.S. supermarkets is the large, dark-purple globe eggplant, which turns savory and flavorful when cooked and works especially well over an open flame. Other varieties taste terrific too, from thin-skinned, creamy Japanese and Chinese eggplants to the small, sweet “Fairy Tale” eggplant.

When choosing one for roasting, look for smooth, firm skin; soft spots mean it’s starting to spoil. Choose one that feels heavy for its size, since a surprisingly light eggplant is likely dried out. Avoid eggplants with lots of seeds, since they tend to be more bitter: smaller, younger eggplants generally have fewer seeds than larger, more mature ones. Male eggplants, identifiable by round, shallow indentations at the bottom, have fewer seeds and less bitterness; female eggplants, with deeper, dash-shaped dimples, tend to be more bitter. For a meatier, less bitter eggplant, look for a male one on the smaller side.

Unless you load them with oil or with salt, eggplants are pretty healthy to roast. They originated in Asia and India and were brought to Europe during the early Middle Ages, but have been used in traditional medicine for millennia. But why are they healthy to cook?

For one thing, they are low in calories and fat (including both Monounsaturated fat and polyunsaturated fat) and have a decent amount of fiber and potassium. Also, eggplants contain healthy amounts of Vitamin C and Vitamin A, which are antioxidants. There is a good reason why eggplants are an important and healthy staple in many vegan and vegetarian diets.

(Note: When cooking eggplant, consider adding black pepper to your recipe; according to studies, black pepper is anti-inflammatory and is thought to contain antioxidant properties.)