Szechuan Eggplant or sichuan eggplant refers to eggplant cooked the Chinese (specifically Szechuan province) way in a delicious Szechuan sauce. This Szechuan Eggplant recipe makes a very quick side dish for vegetable fried rice or noodles.
Making a side dish for Vegetable Fried Rice (or noodles) usually leaves me in a cloud of flour dust, crankiness due to the heat of the oil I need to deep fry stuff in (you know, for gobi manchurian and such) and the humidity in Singapore doesn’t help matters much. While I would definitely agree that a finished Gobi Manchurian or Chilli Paneer is a thing of beauty and deliciousness, it’s not something I would make often simply because of the number of steps and the chances of messing up the kitchen and my hair (yes, I went there).
This Szechuan Eggplant Recipe is a boon on such days. It’s so very easy to put together and tastes great and takes all of 20 mins to cook up. If you are not a fan of eggplant, may I take a few mins and try to convert you? No? Ok then, try Mushroom Szechuan or Tofu Szechuan or oh, a Paneer Szechuan. Pretty much any vegetable can be customized and made using the same basic recipe for Szechuan sauce that I have given below. The recipe idea is from food network.
Other Chinese-inspired recipes that I love:
Szechuan vegetables
Chilli prawns
Dry chilli chicken
Hungry yet? Ok, on to the Sichuan Eggplant Recipe now!
- 3 cups eggplant cut into 1" wide wedges or cubes
- 5-6 shallots or pearl onions
- 1 tsp of minced garlic
- 1 tsp of red red chilli sauce (Sriracha, Maggi, anything works) or chilli flakes
- 2 tbsp of soya sauce
- 1 tsp of regular white vinegar
- 1 tsp of cornflour or corn starch
- ½ tsp of brown sugar (or jaggery)
- 1 small bunch of coriander leaves / cilantro
- ½ tsp of black pepper powder
- 2 tbsp of sesame oil (Indian gingelly oil) or peanut oil
- 1 cup water
- Heat oil in a wide pan and when it starts to smoke, add the eggplant in 2 batches, frying until sticky and brown.
- Add salt and pepper to this, drain and set aside
- In the same pan, add a few more drops of oil if required and fry the shallots until soft.
- To this, add the red chilli sauce (or flakes) and minced garlic. Saute for a few seconds
- Meanwhile, mix the soya sauce, vinegar, corn starch, sugar, and some salt in a bowl to make the Szechuan sauce
- Add this to the shallot mixture and cook on medium-high heat until it starts to bubble
- Tip in the fried eggplant and mix well until the sauce coats the eggplant
- Garnish with chopped coriander leaves and serve hot with fried rice or noodles. Goes great even with plain steamed rice
Step by Step Pictures to Make Szechuan Eggplant
1. Heat oil and fry the eggplant in 2-3 batches
… until soft, browned, and sticky. Add salt and pepper, drain and set aside.
2. In same pan, add more oil if needed, and fry the shallots.
3. Add chilli sauce and minced garlic and saute some more.
4. Meanwhile, make the Schezwan Sauce by mixing the corn starch, soya sauce, vinegar, brown sugar, and some salt
5. Add water to the shallot mixture and top off with the Schezwan Sauce
6. When it boils and starts bubbling, add the eggplant
7. Mix well and cook through until sauce coats the eggplant fully.
Notes:
- You can deep-fry the eggplant until crisp and proceed with the recipe. If served immediately, this will give the dish a nice texture
- You can use spring onions or regular purple onions (scallions, green onions) instead of the shallots for a different flavour
- Use the Asian eggplant for best results. They are long and purple. If not available where you live, use the regular fat eggplant or smaller purple Indian brinjal
- You can add some minced ginger along with the garlic. For some reason, I felt like omitting ginger so I did
For Szechuan Eggplant recipe in Spanish, French, Hindi, Urdu, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, etc please use the Google translate button in the sidebar.
I made this tonight. It was good but I would have liked the sauce to be a bit sweeter. Maybe 1 Tbst of brown sugar instead on 1 tsp. Otherwise, good amount of sauce and quite tasty!
did this as. quick dish for dinner today. I’m not even a good cook. came out real good. family loved it! might become a regular dish.
so good to hear that 🙂
Thank you for sharing this wonderful recipe!
It’s awesome! So delicious!
Has become a regular dish in our home.
Great recipe. I actually doubled it because I had just enough eggplant but had a few mushrooms to do away with. I quartered the mushrooms and added them and two more tbsp of peanut oil when the eggplant was half done.
Just a word of caution. There is a cup of water in the ingredient list that is not included in the boxed instructions that get printed when you click the print button. I realized later that the cup of water is included in the instructions that included pictures. I didn’t use the water and the sauce turned out very thick, but yummy nonetheless.
Tip: chop or slice the shallots. I used pearl onions whole so which is fine as they are small. Might be obvious for most, not so much for some.
Really good
Where do I you use one cup water?
please check step 5
I love this recipe a lot nags…I remember when we went to Vegas about 8 years ago, I stepped in to the Panda Express on the strip and they had this amazing fried rice with Schezwan Eggplant. I have never ever tasted something that yummy and strangely no other branch of Panda Express had it since. I was craving for it many years and your post reminded me of that amazing trip!!!
Shobha
Hi I just made this and it was wonderful! I wanted to make it for my lunch at work though so I used a really big pan doubled the amount of sauce, let it coat the aubergines and then added rice and fried the rice with the aubergines and the sauce, the rice soaked up all the flavour from the pan so I will be having really nice lunch at work this week. Thanks for this recipe, I love discovering new things to do with aubergine!
looks perfect!
Delicious! Made this wuth basmati rice and Sriracha mushrooms and was in heaven. The only tweak I will make to this next time I cook this would be to exclude any added salt as the soy, vinegar and Sriracha provided enough taste.
A ridiculously easy recipe with beautifulresults:)
Sounds nice..new to me
My favorite veggie and wow, what a clarity of the picture!! 🙂
Fantastic schzewan, excellent pair for fried rice.
This looks super good. Love how the sauce is coated over the eggplants. Looks very yummy
lovely and innovative for a eggplant lover like me Nags…bookmarked
Looks delicious !
I recently tried with paneer and baby corns, never know we can do with brinjals. Interesting too
Wow.. simple and yummy recipe.. Just finished my eggplants today.. Will try this in the next batch:)
I great side dish, think they will go well if I mix them in noodles or would it get mushy?
Wonderful combo…
I love this too…always pic this in Chinese Veg stalls, having in my draft to post too 🙂
Love this side for simple fried rice like garlic or ginger…love the taste of fried eggplants in d sauce..
lovely recipe… i have a batch of egg plants sitting in my kitchen right now, I know how they are gonna be made now. thank you for this wonderful idea 🙂
Hi Nags.. This looks very yum. Even in Sri Lanka we do similar recipe called Brinjal chutney… Looks tempting.
Sounds interesting nice twist too…!