I love taking advantage of all the fresh produce in summer and all the color and texture it brings to my plate! This week I played around with eggplant, which has a unique almost meaty texture. I gave it a quick soy glaze treatment that I’ve previously used for chicken thighs (see Sticky Ginger Soy Glazed Chicken) and it worked perfectly. This Soy Glazed Eggplant makes for a super fast and easy vegetarian weeknight dinner, which also meal preps well for the week. As with most stir fries, this recipe is quite versatile, so I’ll list some options for you below!
Make it Spicy or Mild
This recipe for Soy Glazed Eggplant as written is below NOT spicy (without optional sriracha mayo topping), but you could easily make it a spicy stir fry, if you prefer. Simply add a tablespoon or two of sriracha or chili garlic sauce to the soy glaze mixture and you’re good to go. Or, add a few crushed red pepper flakes to the finished dish.
Make it Vegan
The Soy Glazed Eggplant by itself is vegan, but I topped mine with sriracha mayo. If you want to avoid the mayo to make the whole bowl vegan, I suggest adding a few slices of avocado to your bowl or using vegan mayo if you have it. The addition of a creamy topping does a wonderful job of balancing the sweet and salty flavors of the Soy Glazed Eggplant, and really takes the bowls to the next level.
Should I Use Fresh or Dried Ginger?
I almost always use fresh ginger in my recipes because it tastes completely different than dried ground ginger. If you keep a knob of ginger in your freezer you’ll always have fresh on hand and it’s super easy to grate on a cheese grater when frozen. If you must use dried ground ginger, I suggest using 1/2 to 1 tsp, adjusting it to your tastebuds.
How to Serve Soy Glazed Eggplant
I served mine on top of brown rice and topped with chopped peanuts, sliced green onions, and a drizzle of sriracha mayo. You could also serve this with noodles (add cooked noodles to the skillet and toss with the soy glazed eggplant), and add something green on the side, like broccoli or snow peas.
Soy Glazed Eggplant
Servings 4Ingredients
Soy Glazed Eggplant
- 1 eggplant (5-6 cups cubed) ($1.29)
- 2 Tbsp olive oil ($0.24)
- 1/4 cup soy sauce ($0.48)
- 1/4 cup brown sugar ($0.16)
- 2 cloves garlic, minced ($0.16)
- 1 Tbsp grated fresh ginger ($0.30)
Optional for Serving
- 1/4 cup chopped peanuts ($0.12)
- 2 green onions, sliced ($0.23)
- 4 cups cooked rice ($0.60)
- 2 Tbsp mayonnaise* ($0.17)
- 1 Tbsp sriracha* ($0.11)
Instructions
- Cut the eggplant into 3/4-inch cubes. The easiest way to do this is to first slice the eggplant into 3/4-inch slices, then lay each slice flat and slice into 3/4-inch squares.
- Add the olive oil to a large skillet at heat over medium. Once hot, swirl the oil to coat the surface of the skillet, then add the eggplant cubes. Cook the eggplant cubes, stirring occasionally, until they are softened (about ten minutes). If the eggplant begins to stick, add a couple tablespoons of water to the skillet to help loosen the eggplant.
- While the eggplant is cooking, prepare the soy ginger glaze. Stir together the soy sauce, brown sugar, minced garlic, and ginger in a bowl.
- Once the eggplant is soft, pour in the soy ginger glaze, making sure to scrape out all the sugar that may have settled to the bottom of the bowl. Continue to stir and cook the eggplant in the skillet, dissolving any browned bits off the bottom, for about 5 more minutes.
- Top the eggplant with chopped peanuts and sliced green onion before serving. Serve over warm rice with a drizzle of sriracha mayo, if desired.
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Notes
Nutrition
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How to Make Soy Glazed Eggplant – Step by Step Photos
Grab yourself one medium eggplant for this recipe. They were priced per item at the store today, so I didn’t get the scale weight from the register, but this recipe is pretty flexible. I had about 5-6 cups once it was cubed. The size of this eggplant was about 1.5x the length of my hand.
Cut the eggplant into 3/4-inch cubes. To do this, first slice the eggplant into 3/4-inch slices, then lay each slice flat and cut into squares.
Add 2 Tbsp olive oil (or your favorite cooking oil) to a large skillet and heat over medium. Once hot, give it a swirl to coat the skillet, then add the cubed eggplant. Cook the eggplant, stirring occasionally, until it has softened (about 10 minutes). If the eggplant begins to stick too much, add a couple tablespoons of water to the skillet to help loosen it up.
While the eggplant is cooking, make the soy ginger glaze. In a bowl combine 1/4 cup soy sauce, 1/4 cup brown sugar, 2 cloves of garlic (minced), and about 1 Tbsp grated fresh ginger. Stir them together. The brown sugar probably won’t fully dissolve, but that’s okay.
Once the eggplant has softened, add the glaze, making sure to scrape all the sugar out of the bowl.
Continue to stir and cook the eggplant with the glaze over medium heat for about 5 minutes more. The glaze should be bubbling.
Top the Soy Glazed Eggplant with sliced green onion and about 1/4 cup chopped peanuts (optional).
I served my Soy Glazed Eggplant over brown rice and with sriracha mayo drizzled on top. To make the sriracha mayo, simply stir together 2 Tbsp mayonnaise with 1 Tbsp sriracha.
Is the liquid produced by the eggplant a problem during cooking? I know with other eggplant recipes, sometimes you have to put the pieces in a colander and salt them to get the liquid out.
Nope. :) It just evaporates away when it’s in a hot skillet like this. If you were to be baking the eggplant with something it might make the dish soupy, so you’d probably want to get the water out first, but in a hot skillet it all just evaporates away.
Hi beth,
This is a famous dish in our area thanks for posting this post. Feeling happy for this and expecting more from you.
Made this tonight for dinner. I loved every forkful! Did however run out of soy sauce. I used teriyaki to substitute and reduced the amount of brown sugar. Still very delicious! Thanks!
I made this tonight for dinner and it earned 5 stars from my normally very picky other half! I added in chopped zucchini and a can of chickpeas for a little extra bulk. With the additions, I increased the glaze by 50% so everything would be covered. Served over rice and topped with cashews instead of peanuts!
Delicious and easy to make!
So quick to make and very delicious. I added the teriyaki tofu from Trader Joe’s and will have it for lunch this week.
Coincidently picked up an eggplant on Thursday and then checked in to find this recipe. One warning–my bottle of lite soy sauce gives a sodium content of 530 mg sodium per tablespoon and regular soy sauce is about 25-30% more. I doubt anyone is cooking rice without salt, so this one gets pretty high if you aren’t paying attention–the American Heart Association recommends no more than 2300 mg daily for any adult and drops that gradually to 1500 for people in middle age. This recipe, if one uses lite soy, keeps the per serving sodium within guidelines as long is one is paying attention for the rest of the day. I dropped to half of the soy sauce and sugar, and it was still delicious.
Eggplant is a wonderful choice for meatless meals as, despite very little protein, it seems to satisfy meat cravings. I love it in sandwiches, stir fries, casseroles, etc., and have gradually converted my whole family–kids grew up with it, but I started early on DH and it took a while to take hold. Eggplant does, however, have a tendency to soak up oil in amazing amounts, so one needs to watch that. This time of year, I always make ratatouille–eggplant, yellow squash or zucchini, onions, tomatoes, plus some olives or capers (as in Italian caponata) for some vinegar zing. The soy-ginger combo in this recipe hits those same notes.
Great job, Beth–you keep me cooking and also thinking about what we eat and why. Without great taste, nothing else matters, and you continue to provide terrific recipes that are not only cost effective, but delicious. Time for another cookbook?
Thank you, Janet! Unfortunately I probably won’t be publishing another print cookbook. :) Self publishing online is 1000x more fulfilling and rewarding to me. Haha!
Ah, Janet…
Hey this is a great recipe!
If I want to incorporate chicken into this dish, will it compromise the glaze affect?
It shouldn’t hurt the glaze, as long as the chicken is fully cooked before you add the glaze to the skillet. :)
Very intriguing recipe. I’ll likely try it. Want to thank you for one of my favorite cost saving tips … fresh ginger stored in the freezer. Read this from you some time ago and I always have fresh ginger now without the waste I used to have.
Hello when you say it meal preps well for the week. Do you mean you can leave it in fridge or freezer?
Yes, I just mean that I portion out the recipe into individual serving containers and keep them in the fridge for a few days (usually up to 4 days) so I can have meals ready to reheat in the microwave. :)
Made this tonight and loved it! Sesame seeds on top is a MUST!
Just so you and your readers know, there is a vegan Sriracha mayo. It’s called Sriracha Just Mayo and is quite commonly available especially at Walmart. Much cheaper than other vegan mayos and it doesn’t have soy in it either!
This looks delicious!! Have you ever tried coconut aminos? They are like a sweet soy sauce. I have found that I can replace the soy and brown sugar in stir fry sauces with this one ingredient. They used to be more pricey but now there is some competition in the market and prices have come down.
Def going to try this recipe! Thanks Beth for some beautiful creative veggie recipes this summer.
Stay cool!
HOW DID YOU KNOW I BOUGHT A RANDOM EGGPLANT TODAY???
Can’t wait to make this soon!
I CAN SEE YOU. 👀