This is a quick and easy Chinese eggplant recipe with a sweet and tangy garlic sauce. The eggplant pieces are so tender, they almost melt in your mouth. It’s a new favorite in my kitchen! Ready in 20 minutes from start to finish.
Making a stir fry using eggplant can be challenging since achieving the right texture is supremely important to the success of the dish.
There is nothing more disappointing than to be served a plate of semi cooked, sort of crunchy eggplant, sitting in a puddle of oil. This is the reason why I no longer order eggplant dishes from restaurants and started making my own at home. This Chinese eggplant recipe is very easy to make and yields tender eggplant pieces perfectly seasoned with garlic and a salty, vinegary sauce. Delicious!
Table of contents
What is Chinese Eggplant?
Unlike the big, bulbous American eggplant that’s used for popular dishes like eggplant parmesan, a Chinese eggplant, which is the same as a Japanese eggplant, or an Asian eggplant, is much smaller and longer. Its skin is thinner and the flavor is also milder because it contains a lot less seeds (which cause eggplant to taste bitter) than the American type.
Because of it smaller size and thinner skin, Chinese eggplants are perfect for stir frying, sauteing, and grilling, since they take less time to cook and have a milder taste.
Chinese Eggplant with Garlic Sauce Ingredients
- Chinese eggplant: As previously mentioned, if you cannot find anything labeled Chinese eggplant, look for Japanese or Asian eggplant. They are all the same.
- Peanut oil: Peanut oil has a nutty flavor and a high smoke point, which makes it the ideal oil for stir fries.
- Garlic: Just like with Italian food, Chinese food cannot be made without garlic! Garlic provides that pungent and slightly sweet and floral taste that we’ve all come to love so much.
- Ginger: Ginger adds a little heat and earthiness to this eggplant recipe.
- Chinese dried red chilis: Chinese dried red chilis infuses the dish with smokiness and heat. If you can’t handle too much heat, remove the seeds as they are what makes peppers so hot.
- Scallions: Scallions are added last to provide a refreshing crunch and a colorful element.
- Sauce: A mixture of soy sauce, sugar, chinkiang vinegar, shaoxing wine, and sesame oil. Chinese garlic sauce has an iconic flavor profile that can be found in many Chinese dishes. It’s sour, salty, nutty, and a little sweet.
How to Make Chinese Eggplant with Garlic Sauce
Scroll all the way down to the recipe card to get the full Chinese eggplant recipe.
- Make the sauce. Whisk the ingredients for the sauce in a bowl and leave it on the side.
- Chop and stir fry the eggplant. Stir fry the eggplant with a little oil for a few minutes over medium heat, until they are tender. Transfer the eggplant to a bowl.
- Cook the garlic, ginger, and chilis. Use the same pan and after cooking them for a minute, return the eggplant to the pan.
- Add the sauce and scallions. Stir fry for a quick minute and drizzle a little sesame oil.
- Serve with warm rice. Brown or white rice. Enjoy!
Tips on Cooking with Eggplant
- Take your time. Depending on the size, an eggplant can take up to 25 minutes to entirely cook. So it’s important that you stay patient when cooking with eggplant as they take time to soften. However, for this recipe, the eggplant shouldn’t take more than 5 to 7 minutes since we are using Chinese eggplant, and are slicing them bite size.
- Take it easy on the oil. Eggplants only need a little oil to cook. Since they absorb oil really quickly, adding too much will only make them mushy.
- Use salt to draw excess water. I only use this tip when I am cooking with American or certain types of European eggplants that are on the bigger and thicker side. By lightly salting them (they must be sliced for this tip to work) and leaving them for an hour or so, the excess water will make it easier for the eggplant to soak up the delicious sauce it is meant to be paired with. Wipe each piece clean with a paper towel before cooking with them.
- For Chinese eggplant, another way I absolutely love to cook them is to put them whole, in a skillet, with no oil, over medium heat. This a no fail trick and yields the most tender and perfect eggplant. Just turn them over after 2-3 minutes, when the skin is charred. Test the doneness with a knife and voila! Slice and serve on top of pasta, or drizzle with tsuyu or your favorite dressing. I taught this trick to my mother and now she uses it all the time!
Storage
You can store the leftovers in an airtight container and refrigerate for up to 3 days.
Make ahead: This Chinese eggplant recipe can be made the day before and will still taste great the next days. For best results, make the sauce ahead of time and save it in the fridge. The sauce will keep for up to 1 month. I also always keep a container of chopped scallions in the fridge. It’s a huge time saver if you cook a lot of Asian food like I do.
Frequently Asked Questions
Try using zucchini or thinly sliced potatoes (preferably chopped into thin sticks). Potatoes are often used in Szechuan cuisine despite the fact that we don’t see them very often on menus here in the US. They are a staple ingredient for the simple reason that they are cheap and take on pretty much any flavor you add to them.
Technically yes, you can, but I wouldn’t recommend it. The reason being that American eggplant has a thicker skin, lots of seeds which can be very unpleasant in a stir fry, and a stronger, more acrid, taste.
It depends on the eggplant. For smaller and younger eggplants like a Chinese eggplant, there is no need to since the skin is thin. For larger eggplants, yes, you should always peel the skin as it may be old and have a tough texture.
What to Serve with this Chinese Eggplant Recipe
Aside from a warm bowl of rice, there are plenty of other Chinese classics you can serve with this dish.
Some of my favorite are:
- Bok choy with garlic and oyster sauce
- Singapore Chow Mei Fun
- Moo Goo Gai Pan
- Egg fried rice
- Vegetable wonton soup
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Print
Chinese Eggplant with Garlic Sauce
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 10 minutes
- Total Time: 20 minutes
- Yield: 2 1x
- Category: Stir Fry
- Method: Skillet
- Cuisine: Chinese
- Diet: Vegan
Description
This is a tender Chinese eggplant stir fry dressed in a spicy garlic sauce. Ready in 20 minutes from start to finish.
Ingredients
- 2 to 3 long Japanese or Chinese eggplant, sliced in half lengthwise and chopped
- 2 tablespoons peanut oil
- 4 large cloves garlic, peeled and minced
- 1 tablespoon ginger, peeled and minced
- 2 to 3 Chinese dried red chilis, chopped
- 4 scallions, finely chopped on the bias
Sauce
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 2 teaspoons granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon chinkiang vinegar
- 1 tablespoon shaoxing wine or dry sherry
- 1 teaspoon sesame oil
Instructions
- Whisk all the ingredients for the sauce into a bowl and set aside.
- In a large pan over medium high heat, add 1 tablespoon peanut oil and eggplant. Stir fry for a few minutes (about 5 minutes) until the sides are golden brown and the center is tender.
- Transfer eggplant to a plate and add remaining 1 tablespoon peanut oil to the pan. Add garlic, ginger, red chilis and cook for 1 minute.
- Add eggplant and scallions, toss and pour the sauce. Stir fry for 1 minute, until all the vegetables are coated.
- Turn the heat off and serve with white or brown rice.
Notes
Leftovers: Store the leftovers in an airtight storage container and refrigerate for up to 3 days.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 2
- Calories: 194
- Sugar: 6.2g
- Sodium: 883.8mg
- Fat: 16.5g
- Saturated Fat: 1.4g
- Unsaturated Fat: 5g
- Trans Fat: 0g
- Carbohydrates: 10.1g
- Fiber: 1.7g
- Protein: 2.2g
- Cholesterol: 0mg
Questions and Reviews
I’ve cooked this and is delicious. Cooking it again tonight.
This recipe is so simple and an umami winner. I have made it many times and no matter what tweaks I might make, it is always a winner!
Why is the eggplant soaked in cold water in the video but not mentioned in the recipe L
I am making this tonight with some Asian eggplant that I bought at the farmers market. They are tiny, though. What would you say is the total weight needed?
Hi Marian! Between 2 1/2 and 3 pounds should work 🙂
This recipe was so good! I often need to swap out a few ingredients for what I have on hand, and the dish always comes out delicious
There are lots of food blogger like this But the best food recipe “Eggplant with Garlic Sauce” is yours. Thanks for giving me this wonderful blog. I will try to make it like you.
Made this and loved it! I bought that vinegar and some sherry (not my usualy pantry staples) just to make this because it looked so good 🙂 It’s definitely going to be a staple for when we crave some eggplant.
Have questions….where do you find this type of vinegar? In a Chinese grocery store? Does the LCBO stock this wine? And the red Chili’s, are they hot? Can you use fresh, or they must be dry? Are these dry Chili’s available at a Chinese grocery store, or at any grocery store.
Thank you very much
Hi Connie! You can find the vinegar at your local Chinese or Vietnamese supermarket. I recommend using dry chilis because they give a smoky element regular chilis don’t have. You can get them whole, sold in a bag, pretty much at any Asian supermarket 🙂
Glorious. I’m ruined! In a good way! I cannot eat Asian food in restaurants because of their additives, so don’t often even make it at home, for some odd reason. Well, my friend with a market garden included a bunch of Chinese eggplant in my box. Yours was the first recipe that popped up on my search on Brave. I subbed in avocado in place of peanut oil, aminos in place of soy sauce, whole head garlic, coconut sugar, balsamic vinegar, sauvignon blanc, added more sesame oil at table. Served with black instant pot rice and coconut milk/bone broth instant pot basmati rice (girls couldn’t decide so we made both). I doubled sauce as I just used all the eggplant I had for 3 of my daughters and myself. They devoured it, even without meat. Thank you!
That’s wonderful Kirsten! I’m so happy you and your daughters liked this recipe 🙂
I found this recipe to be quite delicious and vegan-friendly. If I do it again, I would peel the eggplant skin… the fam was not crazy about that texture. They loved the creamy, savory eggplant “meat,” however.
I love all your recipes but your ads are interfering with part of the recipe directions when I try to print them. Hope you can remedy this.
Hi Mary Ellyn, unfortunately I have to leave the ads up as they are my source of income. Blogging is my full time job, it takes me 40 to 60 hours a week to keep it up and the ads are how I make a living.
I don’t have any ads on my print page? Might be because I use Brave browser, not sure?
If you use the Safari browser, you can put it in Reader mode by clicking the little book page icon to the left of the search bar, and all the ads disappear for printing.
Just made this as a side with my black pepper chicken. Delicious!!!
This came out great! We added some beech mushrooms this time. Next time going to throw in some ground pork and bok choy too. Thanks for sharing!
Quick question, if you want to add some other veggies like zucchini, sweet potato, carrot, would you still cook them all together?
Hi Briana! I would cook the vegetables that take longer separately like the carrot and sweet potato, and would cook the zucchini together with the eggplant 🙂 You may also need to make extra sauce and leave it on the side, should it need extra flavor. I hope you like it!
Delicious! I doubled the sauce and added soy curls for some extra protein and some reconstituted sliced shiitake mushrooms for umami. I also steamed my eggplant before adding to the pan and cut down the oil. I also dislike raw eggplant and steaming the pieces first is the only way I can trust myself!
Soooo good! I used sherry and rice wine vinegar as subs because I didnt have chinkiang vinegar or shaoxing wine. Even with the subs it was delicious and super easy made it under 45 mins while talking to my mom on the phone!
Delicious and easy
Awesome recipe! My family said it was as good as the restaurant. Our house is strictly “dry”, so I used a little balsamic vinegar instead of the wine, and added cornstarch to thicken the sauce, and it was so delicious!
Best eggplant recipe and excellent dinner w tofu. My husband and I are excited to have it in our rotation now! Thanks for sharing.
I lived in China for 2 years and have desperately tried to find a recipe that comes close to what I had there. Until this recipe, I hadn’t even come close. This. Was. Delicious. Thank you!!!
That makes me very very happy! I always try to make my dishes as close to the way I remember having them while I lived in Asia. Thank you for sharing that 🙂