My whole family goes crazy for this roasted eggplant recipe with our warm and toasty spice blend. It’s tender inside and perfectly caramelized 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.
Find the full recipe with measurements below.
How to Make My Favorite Eggplant Recipe
Tip 1: Cut the eggplant into large pieces. For perfectly caramelized edges and a tender interior, cut the eggplant into larger pieces. For sliced eggplant, go no thinner than 1 inch. For cubed eggplant (like in our photos), aim for 1-inch cubes or slightly larger.
Tip 2: Use our spice blend. Read through the reviews, and you’ll see why I highly recommend our spice blend for this eggplant recipe. If you watch our video, you’ll see that I start with whole spices and then grind them using a coffee grinder. I love this blend so much that I make a triple batch and keep it in a spice jar for roasting other veggies!
Tip 3: Be generous with the oil. Oil helps the eggplant brown and develop flavor. Toss one medium to large eggplant with about 1 ½ tablespoons of oil, adding a bit more if it looks dry as it roasts. The oil ensures a crisp, golden exterior and soft, silky interior.
Tip 4: Roast in a hot oven. A hot oven is key to golden, caramelized eggplant. Set your oven to 425°F. At this temperature, the eggplant roasts in about 30 minutes.
Serving Suggestions
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 Veggie Recipes
For more recipes with eggplants, 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 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
½ teaspoon fine sea salt
Warm and Toasty Spice Blend (Optional)½ teaspoon fresh ground black pepper or ½ 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
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
⅛ teaspoon ground cloves or 1 whole clove
Fresh mint, serving, optional
Directions
1Prep: Heat oven to 425°F (220°C). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.
2Make spice blend (optional): For 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.
3Prepare eggplant: For 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.
4Season: Add eggplant to a large bowl and toss with ½ 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.)
5Roast: When the eggplant is well coated with the oil, tumble it onto the prepared baking sheet and spread out so that they are not touching. Roast 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 (½ tablespoon or so).
6To finish: Serve 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.
I’ve already made this twice in the past week. The first batch went FAST. My husband and I love this recipe. I was initially skeptical about the large amount of spices, but I decided to trust the process. Very glad I did because it’s absolutely delicious. I’ll be making this a lot in the future!
I am so happy you trusted us with the spices! Eggplant can take a lot. Thanks for coming back!
Took to a large gathering. Italian theme so I used fennel, oregano, basil, thyme, garlic powder instead. Same amount as the other herbs. Got many rave reviews. They wanted the recipe. I was never a fan of eggplant before but I am now! Just saw your zucchini recipe. Will try it next
Hi Nancy, We are thrilled you and those you cooked for enjoyed the recipe so much! Eggplant gets a bad rap sometimes, but I think it’s usually remedied with a good recipe 🙂
My husband is blown away by this recipe! We have breaded eggplant/done parmigiana but this is a new fave.
So good. We make lunch bowls with it. Thin layer of hummus, scoop of saffron rice, scoop of eggplant, Kalamazoo slices, pickled red onion and dress with the mint, a dollop of Greek yogurt, drizzle of Tahiti and fresh mint.
This all sounds amazing, Veronica!
Simple and excellent. This also reheats well. I used japanese eggplant as there are fewer seeds (and I seem to be sensitive to seeds). Love the simplicity in both preparation and presentation and the universal appeal of this recipe. I recommend it!
So incredibly delicious and healthy, wow! I will now be eating eggplant every week. I have always liked eggplant, but this recipe makes it mouth watering! I didn’t have fennel seed and it’s still awesome! Thank you
You are so welcome! Glad you loved it 🙂
I made this tonight and it was fabulous. It will be my go-to eggplant dish for sure.
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!