Eggplant is cuisine-agnostic. You’ll find it in Italian pasta alla norma, beautifully braised in Chinese dishes, smooshed into baba ganoush in the Levantine region and in myriad dishes from countless other cuisines. You could call it the wingman of the vegetable world – its mild taste carries other flavours without complaint. To celebrate the joys of eggplant (or aubergine as it's known in some countries), we’ve compiled a sextet of recipes that make this veggie sing.
Bar Idda’s eggplant lasagne

Alfredo La Spina, the chef and co-owner of Melbourne Sicilian trattoria Bar Idda, says eggplant in lasagne form is actually the original iteration of what we call eggplant parmigiana. Whatever you want to call it, you won’t go wrong with this vegetarian and gluten-free showstopper that layers eggplant with a juicy passata, bright basil and creamy buffalo mozzarella. Buon appetito.
Parwana’s banjaan borani, braised eggplant with yoghurt dressing

Banjaan borani – braised eggplant with yoghurt dressing – is a signature of Parwana, which has been bringing the flavours and culture of Afghanistan to Adelaide diners since 2009. Soft eggplant is balanced with a slightly acidic tomato base, then topped with a tangy yoghurt dressing. While in Afghanistan this is a summer dish celebrating the new eggplant crop, Australia’s multiple growing climates mean we are lucky enough to enjoy eggplant year-round.
Sarah Shaweesh’s vegan Palestinian eggplant makloubeh

There’s an art to getting this stunner right: it’s all about perfecting the ratios of stock to vegetables and rice so that when you flip it upside down at the table there’s nothing left in the pot. Sarah Shaweesh, owner of Sydney vegan Palestinian cafe Khamsa, says it can take years of cooking makloubeh to nail it; it’s all about instinct. Even if you’re not quite there yet, this recipe will yield a beautiful combination of fluffy, savoury rice and tender vegetables – including eggplant – dressed with a tahini-based yoghurt and texture-boosting nuts.
Yotam Ottolenghi’s stuffed eggplant in curry and coconut dal

There are a lot of eggplant recipes in veggie fan Yotam Ottolenghi’s 2020 cookbook Flavour, co-written with chef and author Ixta Belfrage: eggplant dumplings alla parmigiana, burnt-eggplant soup, spicy eggplant and steamed eggplant. Then there’s this: stuffed eggplant swimming in a vibrant coconut dal. The eggplant is wrapped around paneer, a fresh acid-set cheese, which soaks up the coconut-y sauce. For vegans, the cheese can be swapped out for extra-firm tofu. Either way, you’re in for an eggplant-led good time.
Cibi’s spicy miso eggplant

This recipe from Cibi, a home-style Japanese restaurant in Melbourne, delivers a lot of payoff for not too much effort. The eggplant is stir-fried in a deceptively easy-to-make, very tasty chilli-miso sauce, resulting in a dish Cibi owner Meg Tanaka says pairs brilliantly with meat and fish dishes – or works simply as a lunch all by itself.
Thievery’s baba ganoush with sheep’s milk yoghurt, pine nuts and burnt butter

One of eggplant’s most famous starring roles is as the lead in baba ganoush, the dip found on tables across the Levantine. At its most basic it involves eggplant cooked down till deeply flavoured and smoky, and mixed with lemon juice, tahini, olive oil and other seasonings. At Sydney’s Thievery, a Lebanese eatery which has closed since we first published this recipe, the dip was given an extra-delicious boost with a sheep’s milk yoghurt dressing and a drizzle of pine nut burnt butter. The perfect vessel for scooping this creation? Lebanese bread, of course.