best baked eggplant

We finally perfected our baked eggplant! Through much trial and error of making eggplant (baked and fried) at home, we recently made some that we decided is the best at-home baked eggplant.

First off, the male eggplant has a much better flavor; the female tends to be more bitter (insert joke here) because of the excessive amount of seeds. It's mother nature and that whole reproduction thing. So, how does one determine? Look at the bottom. The male has a rounded naval, where as the female spot is more of an elongated slit.

The other key thing is to eliminate much of the moisture. By doing that we slice them into 1/4-1/2 inch pieces, then lay them out on a layer of paper towels; sprinkle generously with sea salt and top with another layer of paper layers. Place a baking sheet on top for some additional weight and let sit for at least an hour.


Remove paper towels and place the eggplant on a baking sheet drizzled with olive oil. You may also top with a bit more olive oil and spices of your choice. I am making into eggplant parmigiana, so I just used a little pepper. Place eggplant in 400 degree oven and bake for 30-45 minutes.


I like to eat it as is, but since we had some extra homemade red sauce from the weekend, I decided to top it with that. I also boiled some packaged ravioli we had in the freezer. YUM!