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

FAQs

What is the most flavorful eggplant? ›

Italian Eggplant

They're deep purple, sweet in flavor, and perfect for using in a wide variety of eggplant dishes. One with smooth, unwrinkled skin will prove the best contender for roasting, baking, boiling, or even sautéing.

Luckily, it's actually really easy to freeze them. You can just slice them raw and throw them in your freezer, but they'll only last about 3 months that way (don't thaw before using if you do this). But it's not difficult to quickly prepare them so that they'll last up to 9 months in your freezer.

Chinese eggplant are long and thin, and dark lavender in color. These are great in stir fries, braises, and pickles. Filipino eggplant are long and thin, and dark green in color with flushes of light purple. These are often braised, stewed, and fried.

That isn't necessarily the truth, if it is picked correctly. Large eggplants can be more bitter and have more seeds, as the vegetable was given more time to mature. So instead of going for the biggest; choose small to medium-sized and well-formed eggplants.

Solanine is a natural toxin present in eggplants. Excess intake may cause vomiting, nausea and drowsiness which are all symptoms of solanine poisoning. Every edible that we consume has both benefits and side effects. Therefore, moderation in consuming anything is important.

"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.

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.

Can You Eat Eggplant Raw? Luckily, the answer is yes! While the leaves and flowers can be toxic, the eggplant itself is safe to consume both raw and cooked, and the compound that some might be sensitive to, solanine, is only toxic when consumed in large quantities.

Pat the eggplant pieces dry with a paper towel and place them on a lined baking sheet. Place the baking sheet in the freezer for a couple of hours. Once frozen solid, transfer the eggplant pieces to a freezer-safe bag or airtight container. They'll keep in the freezer for up to a year when stored this way.

What is the best tasting eggplant? ›

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. They are more disease resistant than other eggplants.

Flesh should be white with a slight green tint (orange eggplants ripen orange/green inside). If you are unsure of your eggplant's ripeness, cut one crosswise and check the seeds. They should be clearly visible. If you don't see seeds, the eggplant isn't yet ripe.

You will find that mini eggplant, like this baby eggplant and other smaller varieties, are sweeter/less bitter, have less seeds, thinner skins and may be more tender as well. Sometimes, they have a more intense eggplant flavor as well. Larger eggplant are older and tend to have a bit more bitterness and more seeds.

Italian Eggplant

Not to be confused with its doppelganger the globe eggplant, the Italian eggplant has a similar color and shape, but is slightly smaller and sweeter. Plus, it has a more tender flesh than it's meatier American counterpart.

Difference between White & Purple Eggplants

Taste: in terms of taste, white eggplants are less bitter, creamier and denser. Their flavor is a bit more delicate and these differences are quite subtle. White eggplant is similar enough in taste to purple that they can be interchanged in any recipe.