Baba Ganoush is one of the staple recipes in the Lebanese home cuisine. It is so decadent with its chard unique flavor. If you haven’t tried it yet, I highly recommend you do. It is very similar to Hummus in its ingredients, but in my opinion, this tastes even better than Hummus, and as a bonus it is low carb.
Ingredients:
- 1 large eggplant
- 3 large cloves of garlic, minced
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ¼ cup lemon juice
- The juice of half a lime
- ¼ cup tahini sauce
- Extra virgin olive oil for garnish
Utensils
- Food processor
- Measuring cups
- Measuring spoons
- Knife
- Spoon
- Roasting pan
- Aluminum Foil
- Spatula
- Serving bowl
Directions
Traditionally, the eggplant is cooked directly on the open flames of a gas stove or a charcoal grill to give it that amazing chard taste, but since I do not have a gas stove, and I most of the time I don’t feel like getting my charcoal grill out, I chose to make this recipe using a broiler, which will still give it that delicious chard taste with less mess and less work. That is definitely a bonus for me!
To start, pierce the eggplant all around using a sharp pointy knife. This will allow the steam to escape while the eggplant gets cooked. Otherwise, the eggplant will expand like a balloon, explode, and give you a giant mess in your oven to cleanup.
Line a roasting pan, or a sheet pan with some aluminum foil. This will make it a lot easier to cleanup. Place the eggplant onto the aluminum foil, and put it in the oven two racks under the broiler.
Put the broiler on low, and allow the eggplant to cook for 30 minutes to an hour. check on it periodically because every eggplant is different, and it might take less time or more time for your eggplant to get fully cooked.
you’ll know if your eggplant is fully cooked when you press down on it and it feels super soft. You can also insert a fork in it. If it does not feel spongy, and the fork comes in and out super easily, then it’s done.
If you do not have a broiler in your oven, you can bake the eggplant in the oven at 400 F for around the same time. The taste will be slightly different, but it will still be delicious.
Once the eggplant is fully cooked, remove it from the oven and allow it to cool.
You can proceed to making the dip while the eggplant is till warm, but I highly recommend you wait until it cools completely because the taste will be drastically different. Especially if you want to adjust the taste to your liking, you’ll want it to be cool. Otherwise, you might add something because it makes it taste good when it’s warm, but when it cools down, it might not taste good with that addition.
Once the eggplant cools down completely, peel the skin and cut the stem and the hard tip off.
You can now place it into a food processor with the rest of the ingredients and process it until smooth and creamy. Or if you like it a little bit on the chunky side like I do, you can mash the eggplant using a mortar and pestle, and then mix the rest of the ingredients in.
Another way that would give you a similar chunky result would be to pulse the eggplant by itself in the food processor a few times to chop it up, and then transfer into a bowl and mix in the rest of the ingredients.
As always, you can adjust the flavor of this recipe to your liking. The amounts of the ingredients are the way how I like it, but if you find it too salty or too sour, you could always change the amounts to be the way how you like it. However, I always suggest that you try the recipe first exactly as written, and adjust it the second time you make it if you prefer to do so.
You can serve Baba Ganoush alongside some shish kebab and pitta bread, or you could use it as a spread in a sandwich with some veggies, grilled chicken, or/and anything that you might like.
Baba Ghannoush (Eggplant Dip)
Equipment
- Food processor
- Measuring cups
- Measuring Spoons
- Knife
- Spoon
- Roasting pan
- Aluminum foil
- Spatula
- Serving bowl
Ingredients
- 1 large eggplant
- 3 large cloves of garlic minced
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ¼ cup lemon juice
- The juice of half a lime
- ¼ cup tahini sauce
- Extra virgin olive oil for garnish
Instructions
- If you have a gas stove or a grill, it would be ideal to cook the eggplant directly on the open flame which will give it that shard taste that we are looking for, but since a lot of us do not have gas stoves and we might not want to get the grill out, we will be making this recipe using an oven.
- Line a roasting pan with some aluminum foil.
- Take a sharp pointy knife and pierce the eggplant in several places
- Place the eggplant onto the roasting pan and place into the oven two racks below the broiler.
- Turn the broiler on low and roast the eggplant for 30 minutes to an hour, or until tender on the inside when you pock it with a fork.
- If you do not have a broiler, you can bake the eggplant at 400 F until tender.
- Once the eggplant is fully cooked, take it out of the oven and allow it to cool. You can wrap the eggplant with some aluminum foil while it’s cooling. This will make it easier to peel the eggplant once it is fully cooled.
- Once the eggplant is fully cooled, peel it, remove the top stem and any tough parts, and place it into a food processor.
- Add the rest of the ingredients into the food processor in with the eggplant. Process on high until everything is well combined.
- Transfer into a bowl, drizzle with some extra virgin olive oil, and serve with some pita bread.
Video
Notes
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