This Vegan Eggplant recipe is inspired by a famous Iraqi, “Fried Eggplant” recipe. This is my vegan twist on the original recipe. It is one of the easiest and insanely delicious eggplant recipes you can make.
Eggplant Recipe
My relationship with eggplant is a love-hate relationship, growing up I never liked it or even dared to try it.
My mother loved to cook eggplant and she tried really hard to make it “lovable” for me to eat but she couldn’t. Up until I got pregnant with my daughter and miraculously I was craving eggplants.
My mother used to prepare this Iraqi fried eggplant recipe, where she fry the eggplant in a pan and fry tomato and eat it with bread, I never ate it before but somehow when I was pregnant I just wanted to eat that, I just remembered the smell of fried eggplant and just wanted to eat it so badly.
Since then I fall in love with eating eggplants…but not all recipes! However, this recipe is one of my favorites and hopefully will be yours as well.
This eggplant recipe is inspired by the one my mom used to make, it was very popular in Iraq especially during the blockade on Iraq back in the 90s. Eggplant was very popular there and really affordable, and that was prepared frequently by most people.
So here you go a delicious and affordable vegan eggplant recipe, that you can prepare for lunch or dinner!
What ingredients you need to prepare this delicious Vegan eggplant recipe:
- Of course, you will need eggplants: big eggplants that will be shallow fried. For the best way to prep your eggplants, check the post for Eggplant salad where I have mentioned in detail the best way to prep the eggplants for shallow frying.
- Potatoes: I used Spunta potatoes which are excellent for baking.
- Beef tomatoes
- Chickpeas flour: also referred to as Besan or Gram flour, which is basically made from ground chickpeas. It is naturally gluten-free.
- Olive oil
- Tamari sauce: this is s gluten-free soy sauce, you can use soy sauce instead.
- Spices:
- Turmeric
- Cumin
- Smoked paprika
- Thyme
- Salt & pepper
- Parsley for garnishing.
How to make the recipe:
- Prep the eggplants :
- Peel it into stripes
- Cut it crosswise into medium-thickness circles. Do not make it too thin, as it would stick to your pan, or too thick which won’t cook properly.
- Put it in a colander, sprinkle some salt, and let it sit for 15-20 minutes.
- Rinse it under water to remove the salt and pat it dry with a kitchen towel.
- Prep the chickpeas flour mix, dip the eggplants circle, and coat them before frying.
- Heat olive oil in a pan and add the eggplant to fry them until golden crispy and cooked through.
- Cut the potatoes into medium-thickness circles, add olive oil, and mix them with the seasoning/spices mix, layer them on a baking sheet, and bake in the oven for 30 minutes, flipping them halfway through.
- Cut the tomatoes into circles, add them to a pan with heated olive oil, and fry them for 5 minutes , flipping them halfway. Add the Tamari and cook for an additional 1 minute.
- Once all of the ingredients are cooked all you need is to assemble the dish. On a plate put the baked potatoes, add the eggplant and top it with a tomato, sprinkle the chopped parsley, and enjoy.
How to serve this Vegan eggplant recipe?
Enjoy this eggplant recipe as a main course for lunch or dinner with a side salad. Or have it as an appetizer before your main meal.
You can make a sandwich and add your favorite sauce.
Storing:
Store any leftovers (fried eggplant and baked potato slices) in glass tupperware in the fridge for up to 3 days. As for the tomatoes it is best to make it fresh as it wont last well in the fridge after frying it.
Heat in the oven before serving and enjoy.
Recommended vegan recipes to try:
Vegan Fried Eggplant Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 eggplants large
- 4 potatoes big
- 4 beef tomatoes
- 1½ cups olive oil divided
- ¼ cup chickpeas flour
- 1¼ tsp turmeric powder divided
- 1¼ tsp cumin powder divided
- 1¼ tsp smoked paprika powder divided
- 1½ tsp dried thyme divided
- salt & pepper as per taste
- 1 tbsp Tamari sauce
- chopped parsley optional for garnishing
Instructions
- Please refer to the blog post for prepping the eggplants.
- Preheat the oven to 200°c
- While the eggplants are sitting in the colander, prep your potatoes by cutting them into medium-thickness rounds and adding 2-3 tbsp of olive oil, season them with salt and pepper and add a ¼tsp of each: turmeric, smoked paprika, and cumin, plus ½tsp of dried thyme. Mix them well and spread them on the baking tray lined with parchment paper on a single layer.
- pop the tray in the preheated oven and bake for 30 minutes, flipping them halfway through till they are fully cooked.
- Prepare the chickpeas flour mix by mixing the ¼ cup chickpeas flour, 1 tsp each of turmeric, smoked paprika, cumin, dried thyme, 2 tsp salt, and 1 tsp pepper.
- Dip the eggplant rounds in the flour mixture to coat on both sides.
- Heat olive oil in a nonstick pan (I've used 4 tbsp for each batch of eggplant). Add the flour-coated eggplant rounds to the hot pan and fry on medium heat for 10 minutes turning it halfway through till it is cooked through and golden crispy.
- Once all the eggplants are cooked let them drain any excess oil on a kitchen paper towel.
- Cut the beef tomatoes into medium-thickness rounds. Heat a nonstick pan with olive oil and add the tomato rounds. Season with salt and pepper and fry for 5 minutes, flipping them halfway through. Drizzle ½ tbsp of tamari sauce. cook for 1 minute and turn off the heat.
- Once all the ingredients are cooked, it is time to assemble the dish. On a plate add the potato, top with the eggplant and then top it with the tomato, add the chopped parsley for garnishing, and dig in. Enjoy.
Excellent