My whole family goes crazy for this roasted eggplant recipe. Here are our best tips for roasting eggplant so that it is tender on the inside and perfectly caramelized on the outside.
After a few too many failed attempts, we have stumbled onto the best method for roasting eggplant. This is my family’s favorite way to cook eggplant!
Our recipe below for roasted eggplant works with a simple seasoning of oil, salt, and pepper, but if you’d like to spice things up, we highly recommend our spice blend (shared below). It’s super flavorful.
Key Ingredients
- Eggplant: When you are shopping for eggplant, look for it to have smooth and shiny skin and feel heavy for its size. It should also feel slightly firm, not really hard or very soft, and the stem end should be green and free of mold.
- Best spice blend: For this spice blend, we pulled some of our favorite spices out of our spice cabinet. It’s toasty, savory, and earthy. This mix works beautifully with roasted eggplant and combines black pepper, fennel, cumin, coriander, cinnamon, and clove. Depending on what you have on hand, use whole spices or ground. If you use whole spices, grind them using a spice grinder or mortar and pestle.
Three Tips For the Best Roasted Eggplant
If you keep these three tips in mind, you will be an eggplant roasting genius! With our easy eggplant recipe, the eggplant is tender in the middle and wonderfully caramelized on the outside.
- Cut the eggplant into large pieces for perfect caramelized edges and a tender middle. For sliced eggplant dishes, slice them no thinner than 1-inch. For cubed eggplant dishes (like in our photos), cut the eggplant into 1-inch cubes (or even a little larger).
- Roast eggplant in a hot oven – we find an oven set to 425°F is perfect. At this temperature, the eggplant takes about 30 minutes to roast.
- Be generous with the oil when roasting eggplant. We recommend tossing one medium-to-large eggplant with 1 ½ tablespoons of oil. This amount usually does the trick, but toss in a little more oil if the eggplant looks dry while it is in the oven. The oil helps the outside to caramelize and brown.
How to Serve Roasted Eggplant
I’ll be honest, when we make this roasted eggplant with the spice blend I just mentioned, the eggplant rarely makes it to the plate. Adam, our son, and I go crazy for it. When we do manage to hold off on eating it straight off of the pan, here’s what we love to serve it with:
- I love it tossed on top of this veggie-packed pasta or even with a creamier sauce like this fettucine alfredo
- Over rice with some tahini sauce spooned on top
- Piled onto toast or served with a slice of homemade foccacia bread
- With homemade labneh, a Middle Eastern yogurt cheese.
- In flatbread like or no-yeast flatbread or this homemade pita.
More Eggplant Recipes
We roast eggplants whole in this baba ganoush recipe and then mash the roasted flesh with tahini, garlic, and spices. It’s delicious. We also roast our eggplant when making eggplant parmesan. Try our simplified recipe with a simple homemade sauce, roasted eggplant slices, and cheese. For a recipe for grilled eggplant, see our eggplant Napoleon with grilled eggplant, tomatoes, and mozzarella.
We also have many roasted vegetable recipes like our crispy roasted potatoes, roasted broccolini with herbs, and these honey roasted carrots with tahini sauce.
Easy Roasted Eggplant
- PREP
- COOK
- TOTAL
My whole family goes crazy for this roasted eggplant recipe. This is how to roast eggplant so that the middle is tender and the outside is perfectly caramelized. Eggplant roasted with oil and salt is perfectly delicious, but if you have the spices available, we highly recommend trying our warm and toasty spice blend. Adam, our son, and I go crazy for it. We have provided measurements for ground spices and whole spices. If you are using whole spices, grind them in a spice grinder or mortar and pestle.
When choosing eggplants, look for them to have shiny skin, feel heavy for their size, be slightly firm, and have a green stem.
Watch Us Make the Recipe
You Will Need
Simple Roasted Eggplant1 medium eggplant
1 ½ tablespoons oil, like olive oil or avocado oil
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
Warm and Toasty Spice Blend (Optional)1/2 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper or 1/2 teaspoon peppercorns
1 ¼ teaspoon ground fennel or 1 teaspoon fennel seeds
1 ¼ teaspoon ground cumin or 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 ¼ ground coriander or 1 teaspoon coriander seeds
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves or 1 whole clove
Fresh mint, serving, optional
Directions
- Make Spice Blend (Optional)
1For ground spices, add to a small bowl and mix well. For whole spices, add to a spice grinder or mortar and pestle and grind until a coarse powder.
- Roast Eggplant
1Heat oven to 425°F (220°C). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.
2For cubed eggplant, cut into 1-inch cubes. For eggplant slices, slice into 1-inch-thick slices. Cutting the eggplant into thicker pieces makes sure that the inside turns tender and the outside caramelizes.
3Add eggplant to a large bowl and toss with 1/2 teaspoon of fine sea salt and 1 ½ tablespoons oil. If you are adding the spice blend, scatter it over the eggplant and toss well. (It will seem like a lot of spice mix, but eggplant loves to be generously spiced.)
4When the eggplant is well coated with the oil, tumble it onto the prepared baking sheet and spread out so that they are not touching.
5Roast eggplant for 20 minutes, stir, and then roast for another 10 to 15 minutes or until the eggplant is tender and caramelized. If the eggplant looks dry while in the oven, toss it with a little more oil (1/2 tablespoon or so).
6Serve or store in an airtight container for up to 4 days. If you have some, serve with fresh mint scattered on top.
Adam and Joanne's Tips
- The nutrition facts provided below are estimates.
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Really love this simple recipe. I followed everything except I added garam masala and I didn’t have cloves so I added pumpkin spice and could not believe how flavorful it was, I’m very impressed.
Absoutely delicious and easy! Thank you
Just made this and it was absolutely delicious! Will definitely be making again.
This is SO good and was such an easy way to make eggplant! Even my 5 year old, who typically dislikes most veggies, loved it… she even went back for seconds!
This was delicious even though I think I overcooked it as they were crispy. So next time I’ll chop the aubergine into bigger pieces and maybe roast at a lower temperature. They made lovely crisps though, very tasty.
The spice blend made this dish amazing
We are so happy you enjoyed it!
I picked up a couple of Chinese eggplant today at the farm stand, but had no idea what I would do with them. My husband is on a very strict eating plan with limited carbs, so your recipe looked very appealing (no cornstarch or sugary sauce). I had no fennel but I used the other ingredients and WOW! My husband and I loved it! The flavors together are pretty amazing- I can’t wait to try it again with the fennel seeds! Thank you for this recipe!
So glad you found us and enjoyed the recipe 🙂
Hi, you are right! This came out so good, it got eaten right out of the oven. I love this recipe, making it again tomorrow. Eggplant is also good for lowering one’s cholesterol. I’ve avoided using eggplant because of all the steps they always recommended, like salting and letting it sit. Totally not necessary. Egging and breading the eggplant, totally unnecessary. Will be making eggplant parmesan in the future too, using your roasted eggplant recipe. I got all the ground spices mixed together (enough for 4 eggplants) and put in a bottle labeled “eggplant spices” (DELICIOUS)! Thank you ever so much!
I love that you labeled the bottle “eggplant spices”!!! So happy you enjoyed the recipe.
So glad to have this recipe. I love eggplant but don’t often think about it for some reason. I love the crispness on the outside of these little morsels and the creaminess of the eggplant on the inside. The spice mixture is also good.Easy to prepare. Thanks for sending this particular recipe for us eggplant lovers.
This is so similar to our story! We never though to cook eggplant until this recipe. Now, we love it!
I’m surprised that you don’t salt and let the eggplant sit for 20 minutes to leach the bitterness and water out of the eggplant.
Hi Alamrin, Unless your eggplant is very large, this is rarely necessary. You are more than welcome to do this extra step, but we have not found that it is necessary.
I’m going to try this recipe. I love the spices. Thank you
Wonderful, we hope that you enjoy it!