SAUTEED EGGPLANT: Best Way To Cook Eggplant In The Summer!

If you've ever had tough, tasteless eggplant, or maybe you're not sure if you even like eggplant, this recipe is going to change all of that. I'll show you a few simple tricks I use to make sauteed eggplant the right way. Hi, everyone, it's Maya from WholesomeYum.com, and I make easy, healthy recipes with 10 ingredients or less. So today, I'm showing you how to saute eggplant. It's going to come out a little sweet, super caramelized, and very, very tender. You need just a few simple ingredients and you don't even have to turn on your oven, because let's be real, eggplant season is smack in the middle of summer when it's hot, you don't want to heat up your kitchen, and this is a way to cook eggplant without having to do that. Let's do this. So first things first, how do you cut eggplant if you're going to saute it? There are three different methods. You can slice it, cut it into cubes, or cut it into strips. Strips or cubes are great if you're going to use the eggplant in sauces or as a component in another recipe, but I prefer slices for sauteed eggplant. So I'm going to show you how I do this and I'll explain why I think this is the best method. So I'm going to cut my eggplant into slices. One of the reasons I really love this method is it is the fastest, much faster than cutting strips or cubes, and it gets you more caramelized edges on each slice. It's easier to get nice browning, better all around. The ideal thickness is a quarter of an inch thick, which allows the eggplant to cook quickly and caramelize well. And notice I started with the end opposite of the leaky end. That way you have the leaky end to hold onto as the eggplant gets smaller. Next, I'm going to arrange the eggplant in a single layer on the cutting board. Now, before you season the eggplant, there's a very important step. I'm going to grab a paper towel and dry these out. This is going to help with browning and caramelization later. They may not look very wet, but look how much moisture actually collected on the paper towel. You'll want to do this on both sides. The seasoning for the sauteed eggplant recipe is super basic. I like to measure out my spices, and then that way I use half on one side and a half on the other side. But you can use salt and pepper grinders instead if you prefer. So you'll need a quarter teaspoon of sea salt and a quarter teaspoon of black pepper. Half on one side, half on the other side. And then we also have half a teaspoon of garlic powder. Again, half on one side, half on the other side. So now I'm going to go ahead and flip these over and repeat the seasonings on the other side. If you like, you can also add a bit of Italian seasoning. That makes a great addition, but today I'm keeping it simple. Now, a common question I get is, do you need to pre-salt your eggplant? If you haven't heard of this before, some people sprinkle their eggplant with salt and let it sit for 30 minutes. That's going to remove the bitterness, and then they wipe off the salt. But the truth is, most eggplants today are actually bred to avoid this problem, so it's usually not necessary. That being said, if your eggplant is large, those do tend to be more bitter than the small to medium ones. So in that case, you may want to add that step. Personally, I always just look for the small to medium eggplants. That way I don't have to spend time on salting and they taste the best anyway. Cooking eggplant on the stove top is much faster than other methods. I'm going to heat up about two tablespoons of olive oil, or usually I just eyeball it, over medium-low heat. You'll know it's ready when you can tilt the pan and it moves around easily. You can also use other oils here, such as avocado oil. Now I'm going to add the eggplant to the pan in a single layer. Make sure you don't crowd the pan. Every piece should be touching the pan. And we're going to cook these for about three to six minutes per side. That's for a quarter-inch thick eggplant, like I recommended. It will take longer if your eggplant is thicker. And make sure the heat is not too high. Medium-low is perfect. Otherwise, your eggplant will burn before the inside is nice and tender. It's up to you how brown you like your eggplant. I like mine dark and caramelized, but if you like it lighter, feel free to turn down the heat. The important part is that you cook the eggplant for long enough for it to get nice and soft. Otherwise, it's going to come up tough and kind of tasteless. No thanks. You can see there's no way to fit all the eggplant slices from a whole eggplant into the pan at one time. So you'll need to cook it in batches. I usually need about four or five batches for a medium eggplant like this one. Each time you cook another batch, you'll want to add one to two tablespoons of additional oil. This is because the eggplant absorbs a lot of the oil, so your pan is going to be otherwise dry. The great news is, at three to six minutes per side, even multiple batches of sauteed eggplant cook up really, really quickly. I like to serve my sauteed eggplant with a little bit of fresh parsley. This is optional. Fresh basil is also delicious. Totally up to you if you want the fresh herbs, but I think they add a nice pop of color and some marinara sauce as well. If you like, you can also use tahini sauce. That's also a really great pairing. I'll link both the marinara and the tahini down in the description for you. I am so excited to try this. So I usually like to serve eggplant with chicken or fish or steak, and I'll link some recipes down in the description for you as well. But right now, I just have this eggplant, so light lunch it is. That caramelization is my favorite part. Leave me a comment. Let me know what you think if you make this, or if you'd rather make roasted eggplant. I have a video for that too.