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How to Roast and Cook Eggplant! Roasting and cooking eggplant is SO easy, have no fear! This oven method is for those of you that don’t have grills or, you know, open fires that are required to traditionally roast eggplant and get it ready for Baba Ganoush!
How to Cook Eggplant
There are a lot of different eggplant recipes, but this method is more for those of you wanting to make Baba Ganoush. Baba Ganoush is a Lebanese dip that requires fire roasted eggplant, but the oven roasting method is a lot easier and let’s face it, not everyone has a gas grill or open flames somewhere to cook over. You can bread eggplant and cook it ( parmigiana) or stuff it, or stir-fry it, but we aren’t going to get into those specific recipes. This is just oven roasted eggplant!
First, choose a nice firm, large eggplant. I used a globe eggplant which are primarily the ones you will see in the stores, round and fat.
Preheat your oven to 400 degrees Farenheit. Wash and slice the eggplant in half as shown in the photo below.
Slice the inner side of the eggplant halves across on a diagonal one way, then slice across the eggplant the opposite direction, making a diamond pattern. You can also scoop out the seeds, but they are edible. You are going to find that people are in two camps about eating eggplant seeds, some thing they are bitter, and some extol the virtues of leaving them in. The choice is up to you!
I will note that most traditional baba ganoush recipes have you roast the entire eggplant WHOLE, then you puree it. There is nothing about picking out the seeds!
Next you are going to drizzle olive oil all over the top. You are going to find that the eggplant is SUPER absorbent inside and is going to suck up the olive oil. I kept drizzling until I had good coverage on both halves.
Then it’s time to roast that eggplant up! You can see that I roasted mine until there was a good golden brown colour and actually quite dark in some places.Turning the eggplant from white to a nice golden brown with dark brown in places is where you are going to get your flavour from, those roasted parts.
And voila! Now you know how to cook eggplant! You can eat this as is, with lemon juice and salt sprinkled on top, just scoop them out and enjoy, it’s an easy and fast meal if you want, but I prefer to make it into Baba Ganoush!
Happy Cooking!
Love,
Karlynn
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How to Roast and Cook Eggplant!
- Prep Time
- 5 minutes
- Cook Time
- 50 minutes
- Total Time
- 55 minutes
- Course
- Appetizer
- Cuisine
- American
- Calories
- 495
- Author
- Karlynn Johnston
Ingredients
- one 1-2 pounds globe eggplant
- 1 tablespoon sea salt
- 4-6 tablespoons olive oil
Instructions
- Pre-heat your oven to 400 °F. Wash the outside of the eggplant. Slice in half length-wise.
- Slice the inner side of the eggplant halves across on a diagonal one way, then slice across the eggplant the opposite direction, making a diamond pattern. This allows the heat to get into the eggplant deeper and get a richer roasted flavour.
- Drizzle 2-3 tbsp of olive oil over each half, rubbing it into the cracks and crevices.
- Sprinkle with the flaked sea salt .
- Place CUT SIDE UP on a large baking sheet. Roast in the oven for 40-45 minutes, until the eggplant starts to brown and soften.
- Once the eggplant is really soft, turn on your broil element. You can flip the eggplant and broil the skin to infuse some more smoky flavour and then flip and broil the top. The skin can take a lot of heat without burning the inside flesh of the eggplant, but when broiling the top watch to make sure that it gets browned to your liking and doesn't burn. You can broil the skin until it bubbles and gets crispy, that will really impart great flavour.
- Remove and cool so that it's just warm to the touch. Scoop out the interior of the eggplant and use as desired.
Recipe Notes
Nutrition Information
All calories and info are based on a third party calculator and are only an estimate. Actual nutritional info will vary with brands used, your measuring methods, portion sizes and more.
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Cindy White says
Can you eat the skin of the eggplant ?