Crispy Eggplant Parmesan {No-Fry, Baked, Easy Recipe} (2024)

FAQs

Does eggplant need to be soaked before baking? ›

Many recipes call for salting and rinsing eggplant before cooking it to draw out its bitterness. Brining can be used instead and has the added advantage of helping the eggplant keep its shape when it's cooked, whether your recipe calls for baking, frying, or grilling.

A useful tip to prevent sogginess and greasiness is to salt sliced or diced eggplant and let it sit for an hour. This helps to draw out moisture. Next, rinse and drain any liquid from the sliced eggplant, then pat dry before cooking. This will further soften the eggplant preventing it from soaking up fat while cooking.

Remember, this is eggplant parm, not sauce parm. You want to do the most to protect your eggplant. Salting it to remove moisture before it starts cooking is very important (and letting it squeeze out excess moisture beneath the weight of a heavy pot for an hour is crucial, too).

Older recipes call for salting eggplant to draw out the bitter juices, but today's eggplants are less bitter (unless very large), so salting is largely unnecessary. It will, however, help the spongy flesh absorb less oil and crisp up like a dream.

Eggplant's meaty texture makes it a natural for cooking on the grill, whether you're cooking it outdoors or on an indoor grill pan—and grilling gives eggplant a great smoky flavor.

In an ideal world, Chris adds, you should toss the cut eggplant in a bowl of oil to get a chance to cover every side of it. In Sarah Jampel's eggplant and ricotta sandwich, you brush the eggplant slices with oil before cooking them in a nonstick skillet, and then brush the other side before flipping. Smart!

The peel of an eggplant is completely edible. However, as the eggplant grows bigger and matures, the peel may become tough and bitter. People often prefer to peel larger eggplants because of this, but smaller eggplants do just fine unpeeled. It ends up being a matter of personal preference.

Not cooking it in enough fat.

You need to be a little more generous in order for there to be enough oil on the outside of the eggplant to cook properly.

This is really about water content, not flavor. Eggplant contains a lot of water, and there can be plenty left after baking or grilling. If you then make a mashed/pureed spread like this, that water could make it a lot more liquid than you want.

Undercooked eggplant will ruin your eggplant Parmesan. The texture of undercooked eggplant is tough and spongy at the same time. Ideally, the texture should be firm enough to sink your teeth into but with a crisp outside and a chewy inside.

What happens if you don't salt eggplant before cooking? ›

Salting: Salting removes excess liquid and some of the bitterness. Today's eggplants are bred for mildness, though, so it's not as important as it used to be (if you are frying eggplant, salting will ensure a creamy texture and rich flavor).

Carefully rinse each piece of eggplant under cold water, making sure you remove all the salt. Drain. Step 3: Transfer the rinsed eggplant pieces, a few at a time, to a clean work surface and pat dry with paper towel.

I tend to soak the slices in a bowl of water with a couple of tablespoon of salt for about 30-45 minutes. It doesn't have to do with bitterness, but I find that in doing this, the fried eggplant turns out less greasy," Jenkins says.

I tend to soak the slices in a bowl of water with a couple of tablespoon of salt for about 30-45 minutes. It doesn't have to do with bitterness, but I find that in doing this, the fried eggplant turns out less greasy," Jenkins says.

Cut off and discard the stem of the eggplants, then slice them into 1-inch thick slices, lengthwise. Put the slices in the salt water, and weigh them down with a plate so they are under the brine. Let soak for 30-60 minutes.

Soak eggplant slices or cubes in milk for about 30 minutes before cooking. The milk not only tempers the bitterness, but it actually makes for eggplant that is extra creamy, since the vegetable acts like a sponge and soaks up a good amount of milk in its flesh.

Next, soak the eggplant in ice-cold water: The chill shocks the surface of the vegetable and fills tiny air pockets between the cells, preventing the oil from entering them.