This oven roasted eggplant with balsamic vinegar is my favourite easy technique to put together eggplant. It’s hands-off, flavorful, and versatile. You possibly can serve the eggplant as a aspect dish, add it to grain bowls or salads, or fold it into your favourite pasta dish. For those who’re just a little intimidated by cooking eggplant, that is the starter recipe for you!
Does cooking eggplant scare you just a little?
In that case, you’re not the one one. Individuals inform me on a regular basis that they’re intimidated by the method of cooking this nightshade, and I can perceive why.
If issues go awry, cooked eggplant can develop into too oily or too dry. It may burn too rapidly or refuse to brown once you need it to brown. Until the vegetable is backyard recent, it could actually have some underlying bitterness.
Typically essentially the most difficult elements are additionally essentially the most rewarding. I actually love eggplant, so I’ve developed some recipes through the years that I now think about to be foolproof.
This recipe for oven roasted eggplant cubes is one in every of them. It’s my easiest, go-to eggplant recipe, and I need to share it with you at present.
A strong aspect dish
A enjoyable phenomenon that occurs periodically inside my vitamin apply is that a number of shoppers will articulate the identical query to me across the identical time.
Whether or not that is seasonal in nature, associated to vitamin within the information, or simply some an expression of collective power, I’m unsure.
What it means is that my shoppers get me interested by one thing, and I often mull it over till I can provide them a useful reply.
Currently, quite a lot of shoppers have been speaking with me about consuming extra greens—particularly vegetable aspect dishes.
I spend quite a lot of time teaching the oldsters I work with on macronutrient steadiness, or the significance of getting advanced carbs, protein, and healthful fats represented on every plate. This can be a cornerstone of my vitamin philosophy, and it’s the precept that my cookbook Energy Plates is devoted to.
Nevertheless, vegatables and fruits are additionally a significant a part of balanced, nutritious meals.
When life is busy, it may be laborious to know learn how to incorporate greens adequately. All of us are inclined to have a vegetable aspect dish or two that we lean on closely. For me, it’s a easy inexperienced salad or steamed broccoli with sauce.
There’s nothing fallacious with having a dependable standby. However selection is essential, too, each for the sake of vitamin standing and likewise for avoiding boredom.
The query turns into, how can we get a greater variety of greens when merely deciding what’s for dinner already looks like quite a lot of work?
The reply—or my reply, anyway—is to have a brief record of go-to vegetable sides that’s diversified, but not overly bold.
This roasted eggplant is all the time on that record.
Eggplant 101
A couple of primary enjoyable and fascinating info about eggplant.
Eggplant vitamin
Eggplants belong to the nightshade household, which additionally consists of tomatoes, potatoes, and peppers.
Eggplant is a nutrient dense meals. It’s excessive in fiber and likewise a very good supply of folate and potassium.
What’s extra, the pigments that give eggplants their stunning array of purple shades are highly effective antioxidants referred to as anthocyanins.
Anthocyanins are related to anti-inflammatory results, and so they may additionally be positively related to cardiac well being.
Chances are you’ll be shocked to learn this, as nightshades are generally stated to trigger irritation. What’s the reality?
As with so many vitamin issues, that is nuanced.
Nightshades comprise compounds referred to as alkaloids. Consuming very massive quantities of alkaloids might exacerbate current irritation amongst individuals who have current pro-inflammatory circumstances, corresponding to arthritis.
Nevertheless, over time, analysis has continued to recommend that consuming nightshades as a part of a balanced food regimen isn’t truly a reason behind irritation.
And never all individuals who have pro-inflammatory circumstances can have an adversarial response to nightshades. For most folk, these fruits and veggies provide extra well being advantages than they do dangers.
I all the time advise my shoppers to take heed to their our bodies. If a shopper with arthritis or an autoimmune situation feels noticeably worse with quite a lot of nightshade consumption, then we work to scale back or keep away from consumption of the nightshade household.
In any other case, all nightshades, eggplants included, generally is a nourishing and scrumptious a part of any plant-centric food regimen.
Cooking with eggplant
Among the concern issue round cooking with eggplant is that many recipes name for salting the vegetable earlier than cooking it.
It’s not a tough step. However it’s an additional step.
The rationale behind salting eggplant is that salting will cut back the vegetable’s tendency to have some pure bitterness.
Salting doubtless isn’t wanted when eggplant may be very recent and completely mature. However it’s useful the remainder of the time.
I additionally discover that salting tenderizes eggplant, making it extra palatable. Most of the time, I salt eggplant earlier than utilizing it in my recipes.
For this oven roasted eggplant, nonetheless, I skip the salting. Excessive temperature cooking reduces the necessity for eggplant to be completely tender. In reality, just a little crispiness is a part of the intention right here.
From a taste perspective, candy and tart balsamic vinegar helps to offset any of the eggplant’s pure bitterness, if any bitterness is there within the first place.
Salting apart, I discover that eggplant is definitely a really forgiving and versatile vegetable to work with. It may be fried, sautéed, stewed, baked, or roasted. It may develop into salty, oven-baked eggplant “bacon” or a pleasant pasta sauce.
The probabilities are many.
Kinds of eggplant
It’s value saying one thing about completely different sorts of eggplant.
Most frequently, I purchase glove, also referred to as American, eggplant. That is the kind of eggplant that you just’ll usually see in grocery shops within the US.
It tends to be on the bigger aspect, it has a slimmer high and wider backside (pear-shaped, in different phrases), and it has a darkish, shiny, purple black pores and skin
Italian eggplants look just like globe eggplants, however they’re smaller throughout. Japanese and Chinese language eggplants are lengthy and skinny in diameter; the previous is a deeper purple, whereas the latter is often gentle purple. All three of those varieties are particularly tender and creamy when cooked.
There are extra eggplant varieties, together with the petite, stripey fairy story eggplant, almost spherical Indian eggplant, and white eggplant.
What kind of eggplant ought to I take advantage of for this recipe?
For this roasted eggplant, I like to recommend utilizing globe, Italian, graffiti, Chinese language, or Japanese eggplants. You’ll see globe eggplant in my pictures.
Fairy story eggplant and Indian eggplants will all work as properly. You’ll merely want a bunch of them so as to add as much as the approximate pound of eggplant that’s referred to as for.
Easy seasonings
This roasted eggplant recipe requires minimal flavoring. There’s one predominant taste, which is balsamic vinegar.
If any ingredient is well-equipped to do some heavy lifting in a recipe, it’s balsamic! Candy, tart, and distinctive, a pair tablespoons (or an enormous drizzle) of balsamic can instantly add quite a lot of persona to roasted greens, salads, or pasta dishes.
I often preserve a couple of sorts of balsamic at residence. Extreme? Perhaps, however all of them do various things.
I preserve cheap balsamic available for mixing into dressings. This sort of balsamic is often on the skinny aspect.
There’s additionally all the time a bottle of extra syrupy Balsamic Vinegar of Modena in my pantry or on my counter. I take advantage of this for drizzling on high of pasta, braised lentils on toast, and so on.
Lastly, I wish to preserve some white balsamic round, too. This sort of balsamic has a barely extra mellow profile than crimson balsamic. I take advantage of it every time I would like the flavour of balsamic with out an excessive amount of depth.
For the roasted eggplant, white balsamic is definitely my first selection. Once I don’t have that, I take advantage of crimson balsamic as an alternative.
There’s no want to tug out the flowery, unctuous balsamic for this recipe, except you’d wish to. A extra budget-friendly, on a regular basis selection is okay.
How one can make oven roasted eggplant
Once more, one of many nicest issues about this recipe is that it’s easy. You don’t must salt the eggplant previous to roasting, and the ingredient record is brief.
Listed here are the steps.
Step 1: Preheat your oven
I discover that 400°F / 200°C is the best temperature for this roasted eggplant recipe. When the oven is hotter, the eggplant can fry and burn earlier than it actually turns into tender.
When the oven is cooler, the eggplant might not develop these crispy edges and bits that give it good taste.
400°F is excellent.
Step 2: Trim and dice your eggplant
I like to chop my eggplant into 3/4-1 inch cubes (2-2.5cm). I often minimize my eggplant crosswise into disks, then minimize these disks into cubes.
One massive, globe eggplant will yield a few pound of cubes after preparation.
Subsequent, place these cubes onto a rimmed baking sheet. Drizzle them with olive oil, mud them generously with salt, and blend the cubes to distribute the oil.
Step 3: Roast
Switch the eggplant to the oven and roast it for quarter-hour, or till a number of the edges are beginning to crisp and switch golden.
It’s time so as to add seasoning. Combine the eggplant on the baking sheet, then drizzle it with the vinegar. For those who’d like so as to add a clove or two of minced garlic, now’s the time.
Return the eggplant to the oven. Roast for an additional 15-20 minutes, or till the eggplant is tender and caramelizing.
Earlier than you serve the eggplant, you possibly can style it and add just a little extra salt, vinegar, or some crushed crimson pepper flakes, as you want.
Step 4: Serve or retailer
Serve the eggplant now, or retailer it in an hermetic container within the fridge for as much as 4 days.
It’s straightforward to meal prep the eggplant, in a single batch or perhaps a double batch, then get pleasure from it for some lunches and dinners within the days that comply with.
The Vegan Week
Embrace the enjoyment of consuming selfmade meals day by day with the hearty and healthful recipes in The Vegan Week.
Whether or not you might have three, two, and even only one hour of time to spare, The Vegan Week will present you learn how to batch cook dinner diversified, colourful, and comforting dishes over the weekend.
Serving recommendations
I believe it’s a lot scrumptious to toss the roasted eggplant cubes with some recent basil and serve them as an accompaniment to any easy complete grain + protein combo.
Eggplant’s peak season is late summer time and early fall. So listed below are some seasonal grain pairing recommendations for you:
For the protein, you would keep on model and serve the eggplant with baked balsamic tofu cubes. Chickpea scramble, tempeh nuggets, or balsamic mustard baked tempeh would even be nice.
There are such a lot of large, meal-sized salads that may be even higher with a scoop of the roasted eggplant cubes blended in. I’m considering of tahini mint kale salad and tofu feta kale salad particularly.
And my favourite factor to do with the eggplant cubes is, in fact, to combine them into some cozy vegan pasta dish or one other.
For instance:
Anyway, I’m certain you’ll determine a lot of your individual attractive concepts. The principle factor is to benefit from the eggplant! Right here’s the recipe.
Oven Roasted Eggplant Cubes with Balsamic Vinegar
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Yields: 4 servings
- 1 massive massive, globe eggplant, high and backside trimmed, minimize into 1-inch / 2.5cm cubes
- 2 tablespoons avocado or olive oil
- kosher salt
- 2 tablespoons white or crimson balsamic vinegar
- 1-2 cloves garlic, minced (optionally available)
- crushed crimson pepper flakes (optionally available)
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Preheat your oven to 400°F. Place the eggplant onto a parchment lined or nonstick rimmed baking sheet. Drizzle it with the oil and sprinkle it generously with salt.
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Roast the eggplant for quarter-hour, or till a number of the edges are beginning to crisp and switch golden. Drizzle the eggplant with the vinegar. Add the minced garlic, if utilizing. Stir the eggplant properly. Return the eggplant to the oven.
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Roast the eggplant for an additional 15-20 minutes, or till the it is tender and caramelizing. Style the eggplant and alter salt and vinegar to style. Add a pinch or two of crushed crimson pepper flakes for warmth, if desired.
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Serve the eggplant straight away, or retailer it in an hermetic container within the fridge for as much as 4 days.
That’s quite a lot of pleasure and enthusiasm over a quite simple vegetable aspect, I do know.
However in busy or tough occasions it looks like such a win when nourishing elements handle to search out their approach persistently to our plates, proper?
Prompted by my beautiful shoppers and their questions, I’ll share extra of my favourite, straightforward vegetable sides this fall and winter.
For now,
xo
