Here's how you can make the tastiest eggplant salad! It will come out sweet, light in colour, fragrant and delicious every time
Eggplant salad is one of my favourite recipes. This and the famous zacusca are two of the recipes I make every year when the eggplant season comes. I could eat them in industrial quantities! 🙂
There are several ways to make eggplant salad. Below, I will present some methods by which you can "upgrade" the basic eggplant salad:
Add mayonnaise! Some people prefer to add a little mayonnaise to the eggplant salad, both to make it lighter in color and to give it a special flavour. For eggplant salad with mayonnaise, two tablespoons are enough for the amount shown in the recipe below.
Add garlic instead of onion! Are you in the Onion or Garlic fan camp? You can make eggplant salad with garlic, adding about 2-3 mashed puppies instead of onions.
Make it simple! I added some onions, because that's how I was taught to make eggplant salad, but if you want it simple, you can omit the onion from the recipe below.
Change its texture. If you want to try something different, take a look at my baked eggplant cream recipe. The ingredients are about the same, only the processing method differs. Blending will result in a mousse-like texture.
Season it! I love the Lebanese version of eggplant salad! Have you tried mutabal so far? It's a very similar recipe, only it has a special ingredient - tahini!
Tips for a perfect eggplant salad
My mother taught me some useful tricks to make the best eggplant salad every time. Here they are!
Drain the eggplant . Thus all the "bitterness" will come out of them, and they will be sweeter in taste. Use a wood or plastic shredder, not a metal surface. That way they won't oxidize.
Keep the eggplant salad in a plastic or glass container. Not metal! For the same reason mentioned above.
Bake them on the flame, on the stove. In the recipe below I put the version with the grill because it is more comfortable, but the eggplants baked on the flame are the tastiest. Yes ... you will dirty your stove in a big way, but if you make larger quantities to put in the freezer, it's worth it!
Choose smaller and thinner eggplants. They are sweeter and have fewer seeds.
Leave the salad to cool in the fridge for at least an hour before serving. That is if you have patience and do not enjoy it as soon as you did! 🙂
Eggplant salad
Here's how you can make the tastiest eggplant salad! It will come out sweet, light in color, fragrant and delicious every time!
Prep time - 20 mins Cook time - 20 mins Total time - 40 mins Serves - 8
Ingredients
4 eggplants, smaller and thinner
an onion, chopped
3 tablespoons oil
2 tablespoons lemon juice
sea salt to taste
Instructions
Wash the eggplant well and heat the grill. Bake the eggplant on each side; don't forget to turn them once every 10 minutes to bake evenly. Bake them until their skin turns black.
Peel a squash, grate it and squeeze the juice. Let them drain for at least half an hour. The spilled liquid is very bitter. The longer they drain, the better they taste.
Use the hand mixer to mix the eggplants and make a paste.
Put the chopped eggplant in a glass bowl and add the oil, salt, lemon juice and onion. Mix them well.
Eggplant salad is ready! Serve cold, on toast! Delicious!
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