Oven Baked Turkey Eggplant Parmesan Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Does eggplant need to be soaked before baking? ›

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.

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.

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.

A raw eggplant is crunchy and flavorless, like a raw potato. When it's cooked, “it should turn fully tender, all the flesh should be somewhat custardy. If you have to, hammer it a bit, knock it around, let it start to collapse.”

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.

While the skin of a small young eggplant is edible, the skin becomes bitter on larger or older eggplants and should be peeled. When in doubt, the answer to, "Do you peel eggplant before cooking?" is yes, peel it. Use a vegetable peeler or paring knife to remove the skin.

Eggplant is a vegetable with a creamy-dense texture making it a perfect vehicle for baking, frying, breading, sautéing, pureeing, and more. With its endless varieties in color (purple to white), size (large to small), shape (portly to slender), and flavor (savory to sweet), there's no end to the recipes you can use.

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.

Salt and rest: Slice the eggplant into your desired shape and sprinkle salt over the slices or cubes. Let them sit for about 30 minutes to an hour. The salt will draw out some of the bitter compounds.

How thick do you cut eggplant for eggplant parmesan? Eggplant should be sliced about 1/4 inch thick when making eggplant parmesan.

Does Olive Garden serve eggplant parmesan? ›

Hand-breaded eggplant, lightly fried and topped with marinara and melted mozzarella. Served with a side of spaghetti. Available weekdays, 11am-3pm.

Not cooking it in enough fat.

The flesh of eggplant is like a sponge — it will immediately soak up any liquid it touches. Drizzle a spoonful of olive oil over cubes before roasting them and you'll see that it's already soaked through the flesh before the baking sheet even gets into the oven.

Many recipes have you salt the eggplant or soak it in salt water for up to 2 hours, then pat dry before cooking. This helps remove some of the bitterness and prevents the eggplant from tasting chewy.

Larger, more mature eggplants can be more bitter, typically because their seeds are larger and seeds tend to hold on to the most bitter flavors.

If you are worried that the eggplant might be bitter, slice or cube it, then salt it liberally and allow it to drain for an hour or so before cooking. Putting salt on the eggplant triggers osmosis, which draws out excess moisture and the bitterness along with it.

Soaking eggplant in water and vinegar helps remove some of the vegetable's natural bitterness.