Have you ever looked at those pretty purple vegetables? As modern Americans we aren’t used to cooking eggplants, I don’t know when it moved out of our regular diet but it somehow did. I mean I LOVE vegetables and I don’t cook eggplant all the time. It gets weird and squishy and slimy sometimes and I just don’t care for that texture… conveniently I’m the main cook in our house so I get to cook the eggplant the way I like it. I like it crispy and fried in olive oil and rosemary. As I often admit, I cold-swiped the recipe from my sister. Her artist soul comes up with some incredible recipes BUT you’ve got to watch her cook. She will come up with creative tastiness but the lady doesn’t measure and half the time doesn’t pay much attention to what she puts in the food. Yet she’s an incredible cook.
Jump to RecipeI learned about her eggplant chips years ago and unlike most recipes I haven’t changed much. In summary you thinly slice eggplant, fry it with olive oil and some fresh rosemary. That’s it. There are two ways to cook this; on a grill or in a pan. When we started making these we didn’t have money for fancy tools and all of us lived in apartments with no balcony much less a grill. If you have a grill it’s a great way to cook the eggplant because it’s less to clean but you’ve got to slice the eggplant a wee bit thicker. Think ¼ in versus as thin as you can possibly make it.
For meal planning purposes one large eggplant is great for the vegetable option of my dinner. I often will call it the ‘appetizer’. It does take longer to cook and does require some prep time. If you want a vegetable based meal try making them into a sandwich with fresh mozzarella and basil on a hoagie type roll. Back when I could eat delicious bread I LHURVED these sandwiches. As a dedicated carnivore I didn’t miss meat when I ate this tasty treat. All the words are done! here’s the recipe
Eggplant Chips
Equipment
- 1 frying pan I like cast iron but most anything would work.
- 1 spatula make sure it's thin so you can skooch it under the eggplant
- 1 basting brush Mine's silicone so it can go in the dishwasher but a fiber one would work well too
- 1 sharp knife or mandolin Mandolin is easier but be careful to not to cut yourself!
Ingredients
- 1 eggplant
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 2 large sprigs rosemary
- 1 tbsp salt
Instructions
- finely chop the rosemary and put it in the olive oil. You can mince it with kitchen scissors in the olive oil if you'd like. It's easy and makes the olive oil taste more like rosemary.
- Thinly slice the eggplant. If cooking in a pan slice it super fine. If grilling go for a little thicker. The super thin ones will burn on the grill.
- Heat the pan to medium heat put a glug of cooking oil on the pan and add the eggplant slices to the pan. Brush the rosemary olive oil onto the eggplant, let it soak in then turn the slice over and brush the other side with rosemary olive oil.
- Fry the eggplant till it's medium brown on both sides and slightly crispy. Immediately salt them when you take them off the frying pan. Salt these puppies like they're potato chips. Trust me it's better this way.
- Eat them immediately and feel good about eating your vegetables for the day.