Thai-Style Eggplant Salad Recipe

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Everybody might be talking about the Hearth chef-owner's bone broth business, but Marco Canora has long been an advocate for healthy cooking. His new book, Good Food Dayserves as both a recipe guide and a treatise for following simple rules about healthy living. Rule #1: eggplant is everyone's friend. Here's tangible, delicious proof. 

Eggplant's spongelike tendency is its greatest asset and its most common road to ruin. A little too much oil and it turns into a soggy mush. By dry-roasting it, eggplant comes out soft, but still maintains its meaty texture. Peeling away alternating strips of skin helps to hold the tender eggplant slices together after they're roasted and adds a flash of deep purple color to the salad, along with more fiber and antioxidants. Japanese eggplants are one of my favorite treasures at the summer greenmarket. Compared to globe and Italian varieties, Japanese eggplants have narrower, longer bodies with firm, sweet flesh and thinner skin. If you can't get them, substitute Italian eggplants. Both varieties take well to an Asian dressing that has a delicious intensity of salty and tart flavors combined with mild heat from a serrano pepper and fresh, green brightness from loads of cilantro, basil and mint.

Reprinted with permission from A Good Food Day

Thai-Style Eggplant Salad Recipe
No Ratings
Prep Time
40
minutes
Cook Time
30
minutes
Servings
0
servings
Ingredients
  • extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 1/2 pounds Japanese eggplant
  • 2 tablespoons warm water
  • 1 tablespoon coconut palm sugar
  • 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
  • 2 tablespoons soy sauce
  • 1 teaspoon fish sauce
  • 1 bunch scallions
  • 1 large clove garlic
  • 1/2 serrano chile
  • 1/4 cup fresh mint leaves
  • 1/4 cup cilantro leaves
  • 1/4 cup Fresh Basil leaves
Directions
  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F.
  2. Line a baking sheet with foil and lightly coat it with olive oil.
  3. Peel away alternating strips of skin lengthwise on each eggplant, leaving strips of unpeeled skin in between, so you get a racing stripe look.
  4. Cut the eggplant crosswise into 1/2-inch thick rounds (1-inch cubes, if you're using regular eggplant) and arrange them in a single layer on the baking sheet.
  5. Roast until the eggplant slices are tender all the way to the center, about 30 minutes.
  6. In a large bowl, whisk the water and coconut sugar together until the sugar dissolves.
  7. Add the lime juice, soy sauce and fish sauce and whisk to combine.
  8. While it's still warm, add the roasted eggplant to the bowl of dressing.
  9. Drop in the scallions, garlic, serrano chile, mint, cilantro and basil and toss to combine.
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