You can really impress your guests at your next cookout by adding grilled eggplant to your meal. Eggplant has a delicious flavor when prepared correctly, and is not as difficult to grill as you may imagine! As with so many grilled foods, once you know the proper process in which to follow, the grilling itself is quite easy. Follow these simple instructions and you can add grilled eggplant to your cookouts with ease!
Before You Fire Up the Grill
There is a little bit of preparation involved before you actually grill your eggplant, and you don’t want to skip out on any of the preparation! The first thing to know is that when you grill eggplant, you do not need to peel it! This may seem like common sense, but since eggplant is often peeled before preparing it in other ways, many people don’t realize that they shouldn’t do so before grilling it.
Also, salting an eggplant is very important for taste. You add salt to an eggplant because this will “pull out” the bitter juices hiding within, and also, because it will help your eggplant to not absorb oil and become very greasy while grilling. You aren’t really salting it to add a salty taste, but instead to receive these other benefits.
Since you don’t want to peel your eggplant, you can salt it by cutting it into slices. The size of the slices is really up to you, though of course grilling time will be slightly longer for larger slices. Let them sit in a colander for about an hour, and then rinse them with water, making sure to squeeze most of the moisture out with your hands before patting the eggplant pieces dry. If you leave in too much moisture, your eggplant will be greasier than you would want.
Grilling Eggplant Correctly
Grilling eggplant is very simple once you have done the preparation of the slices. Here are some tips and guidelines to follow:
- Heat your grill up to a medium-high heat level. With charcoal, it is a little less precise, but with a gas grill, this is easy to do.
- Before grilling your eggplant, make sure that you brush each slice with oil. A medium amount will do. Remember that if you have not salted your eggplant, it will absorb way too much of the oil.
- It is important not to undercook eggplant. You want the eggplant to be soft, so you will know that the eggplant is done cooking when it achieves such a texture.
You can marinate your eggplant beforehand also, if you prefer. Also, some people prefer to add seasoning or butter to their eggplant before eating, but you should probably allow your guests to do this, unless you know their preferences. Your friends and family will definitely be surprised when you add this tasty and underrated grill food to the menu during your next cookout! Follow the previously outlined directions, and you should have no problems.
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