Grandma's Baked Eggplant Parmesan Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to cooking eggplant? ›

Eggplants are known to absorb a lot of fat while cooking. 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.

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). Then cut it lengthwise instead of across into medallions.

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.

Modern eggplant has had bitterness nearly bred out of it, so many cooks have given up the practice. Salting the slices for eggplant Parmesan is not to prevent bitter flavors, but to season the eggplant itself and, at least in my experience, keep the eggplant from sucking up too much of the olive oil from frying.

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.

The oil still left in the eggplant tissues contributes to the soft, buttery texture that's so appealing. Oil also carries the essence of added herbs and spices, so that eggplant dishes can become rich with the aromas and heady flavors of onions, peppers, anchovies, parsley, garlic, and lemon juice.

Eggplants can have the alkaloid solanine, which can give it a bitter taste. “Another compound possibly contributing to eggplant's bitterness is anthocyanin, which is a phytochemical that gives eggplant its pretty purple hue and can act like an antioxidant when we consume it,” says Nichole Dandrea-Russert, MS, RDN.

Not cooking it in enough fat.

The flesh of eggplant is like a sponge — it will immediately soak up any liquid it touches.

Modern Eggplants Are Less Bitter — No Salt Required

Let the pieces sit for about an hour while the salt apparently draws any bitterness that might be in the eggplant out. Then you're told to rinse the eggplant and pat it dry to remove the excess salt before proceeding with the recipe.

This process takes time, as the salt is drawing moisture out of the eggplant. You'll need 30 minutes at the minimum, but you can leave them up to an hour and a half. Watch for moisture beading up on the eggplant, which is what you want. Rinse the salt off.

How do you cut eggplant for parmesan? ›

Hand-Slicing Method

Start by cutting off the top and bottom of the eggplant to create stable surfaces. Stand the eggplant upright on one of its newly trimmed ends. Carefully slice the eggplant crosswise into even slices, about 1/4 inch thick. Repeat until you have sliced the entire eggplant.

It helps draw out moisture from the eggplant. You don't have to salt eggplant though, it depends on the texture your looking for. Salting gives it a more creamy texture when cooked and not salting helps the eggplant hold up and be a little firmer after cooked.

“The absorptiveness of eggplant can be reduced by collapsing its spongy structure before frying,” he writes. Which you can do by microwaving it before frying (!) or salting slices that'll draw out the water and close up those air pockets, giving you a firmer flesh to work with.