This roasted eggplant and potato salad is a great side dish or small main dish. The eggplants and potatoes, capers and sundried tomatoes are a great blend of flavors.
In This Post: Everything You Need to Make a Roasted Eggplant Salad
Roasted Eggplant Salad Photos
Ingredients for this Recipe
Eggplant (Aubergine)
The most common type of eggplant that you will find in your local grocery store are globe eggplants. They are one of the more large eggplants, with a deep glossy purple appearance.
Baby Potatoes
We’ve used baby potatoes because they have this great sweet and nutty flavour and are perfect for skin on roasting, ending up with a crisp golden brown skin.
Sun-Dried Tomatoes and Olives
This bold flavour combination was something we added after making this recipe for the first time. A burst of colour from the tomatoes and their tart tanginess combined with the salty olives really lifts this dish.
Capers
Capers are small unopened flower buds with a taste similar to an olive with hints of lemon. You will be able to buy a jar of capers in brine water in your local grocery store.
Olive Oil
We recommend using extra-virgin olive oil, because if you’re going to use olive oil, you may as well use one with some health benefits. EVOO is still packed with antioxidants and vitamins.
Garlic
This is a judgement-free space and it’s fine to use pre-minced garlic from a jar. If you’re happy to peel and mince your own fresh garlic from cloves, then that’s also fine. Just don’t use garlic powder in your dressing.
Lemon Juice
Freshly squeezed lemon juice is great and is always preferred. The bottled juice just does not have the same pronounced flavors and contains some preservatives too. But saying that, we’ve made this dish with both because we were all out of lemons one day, and it was just fine.
Dried Oregano
Oregano has a peppery and pungent flavor profile and is definitely one of the bolder flavors we’ve used in this delicious dish.
Ground Salt and Pepper
You can use the salt (we recommend sea salt) and pepper as liberally as you wish in this recipe. The salt will enhance the other flavours and the pepper will add some heat.
Fresh Herbs
We recommend using fresh basil for parsley. We used a sprig of basil in the making of this recipe. We went with basil when making this recipe for this blog post. It has a sweet and savory flavour, with hints of aniseed and pepper. But again, flat leaf parsley is great too.
Alex and Katherine’s Comments
This recipe came about because we hate wasting food. We had made a different potato salad and had leftover baby potatoes. We looked around in our vegetable store and found an aubergine, and a couple of jars of aromatics from the fridge later, and we’re working out what delicious recipes we can make. We love oven-roasted eggplant and thought that with some Mediterranean-style accompaniments, we could have a great-tasting warm eggplant salad.
This eggplant and potato salad makes a great small main course or side dish. We kept the serving size down to two small mains or larger sides, but you can adjust this. It’s a really easy recipe that feels a little bit like cheating. We’ve used some pretty simple ingredients, all things you can pick up at any produce aisle or jars off the shelf in most grocery stores.
We wanted to make a truly flavorful dish for every eggplant lover to enjoy, which is why we bolstered the more neutral flavour of the eggplants and potatoes with the bolder flavors of olives and sun-dried tomatoes. Then to make sure these oven-roasted veggies have plenty of zing to them, we included a lemon, caper and garlic dressing.
We feel this is one of those recipes that you can easily play around with and make it your own. You can quite easily substitute some ingredients. You could try adding some petal-cut red onions, maybe some cherry tomatoes, or any other seasonal vegetables. Perhaps instead of our green dressing, you could try a marinara sauce poured on top with a dash of balsamic vinegar making it more of an Italian eggplant salad?
Roasted Eggplant Salad Recipe
Easy Vegan Roasted Eggplant (Aubergine) Salad Recipe
Equipment
- 1 Baking sheet
- 1 Oven
- 1 Chefs Knife
- 1 Chopping board
Ingredients
- 1 Large eggplant (aubergine) diced
- 340 g Baby potatoes diced
- 4 Tbsp sun-dried tomatoes and olives chopped and combined (or bruschetta)
- 3 1/2 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 tsp dried oregano
- Ground salt and pepper to taste
- 2 Tbsp capers drained and finely chopped
- 2 Cloves garlic minced
- 1 Tbsp lemon juice
- Fresh parsley or basil to garnish
Instructions
- Start by preparing the vegetables. First, dice the eggplant into half-inch cubes. Then dice the baby potatoes into quarters.
- Preheat your oven to 200°C / 180°C Fan / 400°F / Gas Mark 6
- In a large mixing bowl toss the diced eggplant and potatoes, sun-dried tomatoes and olives in 2 tablespoons of olive oil, with salt, pepper, and the dried oregano.
- Once well mixed spread your salad mix out evenly on a baking tray.
- In the middle of your preheated oven roast for about 25 minutes, or until the potatoes are golden and the aubergine is tender. Remove to turn everything over halfway through to be sure it cooks evenly.
- While the vegetables are in the oven now is the perfect time to finely chop the capers and mince the garlic.
- To make the dressing, in a bowl, mix together the capers, garlic, lemon juice, and 1 1/2 tablespoons of olive oil.
- Once the vegetables are roasted, transfer them to a serving dish.
- Serve warm or at room temperature and pour over your garlic, and lemon dressing. Then garnish with a sprig of fresh herbs.
Notes
- If you’re using a jarred olive and sun-dried tomato blend, or individually jarred sun-dried tomatoes just watch out not not add too much excess oil. You’re already using olive oil to coat the potatoes and aubergines, if you spill in the oil from these jarred vegetables too you could end up with quite a greasy dish, blotting them on paper towels can help.
- You do want to really finely chop the capers so that they pour well over the salad. You can see just how fine we chopped them in the image of the dressing we shared in the post for this recipe.
- Make sure that you use a baking tray that’s large enough to spread out all of the vegetables in a single layer, and better still with some room between. This will help the potatoes and eggplant cubes get a crisp edge too them and avoid a soggy salad.
- When thinking about how you want to chop your potatoes and eggplant cubes. The eggplant pieces will shrink in size by about a half, where as the potato cubes will barely change in size. So if you would like evenly sized pieces, you would want to dice the potatoes smaller than the eggplants.
Roasted Eggplant Salad: Frequently Asked Questions
What can I use instead of sun-dried tomatoes?
Oven-dried tomatoes made by slow-roasting fresh tomatoes until they become chewy and concentrated in flavor.
Roasted red peppers provide a smoky, sweet flavor and a similar texture, though they are less tangy.
Tomato paste for a concentrated tomato flavor, a small amount of tomato paste can add richness and depth.
What types of potato work well in a roasted vegetable warm salad?
Baby potatoes are small, waxy potatoes like Yukon Gold or red-skinned varieties are perfect for roasting. They have a buttery texture and hold their shape well, adding a nice contrast to softer vegetables.
Yukon Gold potatoes have a creamy texture but still crisp up beautifully when roasted, making them a versatile choice for salads.
Red potatoes have a firmer texture and thinner skin, making them great for roasting as they maintain their shape and provide a slight crunch.
How can I make the best roasted eggplant?
Choose the right eggplant. Look for firm, shiny eggplants with smooth skin and no blemishes. Smaller eggplants tend to be less bitter and have fewer seeds.
Pre-salt for flavor and texture. After dicing the eggplant you can season it with salt and let it sit for 30 minutes to draw out moisture and reduce bitterness. Rinse and pat dry thoroughly with a paper towel before roasting.
If You Thought this Recipe was Tasty, You Should Try These
- We’re still to post more eggplant dishes but we do have a great range of small potato dishes and sides. You’ll find the perfect pairing for a comforting winter meal or a summer salad.
- You can use capers to add some authentically seafood-like flavours to other salads as well, just like in our cool Caesar salad dressing.
- For another brilliant easy recipe which works well as a main or side, we’ve got a creamy tomato orzo dish you might like too.
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