How to Grill and Serve Eggplant

This is a great summer dish.When you grill meat, always remember to trow in some veggies too. Eggplant is a great choice. Let me show you how to prepare eggplant for grilling and how to serve it. Below are two different recipes, both of them produce great look and taste.

Grilled Eggplant with Red Onion, Mint and Walnut

You need for 6-8 people:

3 medium eggplants, sliced length-wise with slicer or mandoline
1/3 cup olive oil
Salt and black pepper
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1 large red onion, sliced
2 tablespoons fresh mint, chopped
3 tablespoons walnut, coarsely chopped

Steps:

Place eggplant slices on sheets of paper towel, salt them on both sides and cover with another layer of paper towel. Put large baking sheet over it, and add something heavy on top of everything to apply pressure on eggplant slices. Let it stay that way for 30 minutes. Salt and pressure will squeeze out liquid and thus take out bitterness from eggplant. Now wash eggplant with water, rinse and dry it with paper towel.

In the meantime, heat the grill.

Brush eggplant with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and black pepper. Grill eggplant slices for few minutes on both sides. They should get nice grill marks. Then place them on large dish as on the picture above.

Make the dressing with the rest of olive oil, lemon juice, salt and black pepper. Place onion rings over eggplant and drizzle the dressing over it. Sprinkle walnut and fresh mint. Serve it warm.

Grilled Eggplant Slices with Garlic Dressing

To make second version of grilled eggplant, slice it cross-wise. Repeat the same preparation and grilling method as in the first recipe.

For dressing use 1/4 cup olive oil, juice of 1/2 lemon, minced 1 clove of garlic, chopped 3 leaves of fresh basil, 1 tablespoon of fresh chives, salt and black pepper to taste. When the eggplant slices are grilled, drizzle them with the garlic dressing.


Bellow is an eggplant with very peculiar shape. Sometimes you find them that way.