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Aubergine

Soaks up 30% of its weight in oil

Per 100 g

25 kcal Energy

1 g Protein

5.9 g Carbs

0.2 g Fat

3 g Fibre

Gluten-free

Let’s cook with it → Invent something with it

What it is for

They bring water, fibre, acid and colour. Most are 80–95% water, and much of cooking them is really about managing that water.

Where it catches you out

Under a lid they cook in their own water; in a crowded pan they steam. If you want colour, give them room and take the lid off.

The knack

It drinks up to 30% of its weight in oil. Salt it for twenty minutes, squeeze, then cook.

Storage and health

How to keep it, and who it suits.

Keeping it

Keep it out of the fridge, where below 10 °C it takes chilling injury and darkens inside: 3-5 days in a cool corner. Use it as soon as it is cut, since the cut face oxidises.

Gluten-free

Aubergine is naturally gluten-free.

Glycaemic index

This ingredient carries no meaningful carbohydrate, so it has no glycaemic index. On its own it will not move blood sugar; what you eat alongside it decides that.

What it works with

Pairings, and the reason for each

"They go well together" is not an explanation. Every pairing below has a chemical or structural mechanism under it.

Olive oil →

Aubergine flesh is aerenchyma: spongy tissue full of air pockets that hot oil rushes into by capillary action. Past roughly 70 °C the cells collapse and the tissue stops absorbing and can even release oil back. Salting or pre-microwaving works by filling or collapsing those pockets *before* they meet the oil.

Yoghurt →

The fat and acid together cut the oil the aubergine absorbed, and the protein binds the chlorogenic-acid bitterness.

Also works with

Tomato paste

Garlic

Tahini

Pepper

Salt

Lemon

Walnut

What goes on top

Garlic yoghurt, tomato sauce, sizzled chilli butter, pomegranate molasses, tahini sauce, crushed walnut

Key compounds

Klorojenik asit: The dominant phenolic and the substrate for polyphenol oxidase — why cut aubergine browns like an apple.
Nasunin: The skin anthocyanin; water-soluble and pH-sensitive, it bleeds and greys in alkaline conditions.

Nutritionally

Aubergine is very low in calories as a vegetable and one of the highest oil-absorbing foods in the kitchen, so the nutritional profile of the dish is set almost entirely by the cooking method.

Common myth "Salt aubergine to draw out the bitterness" is partly outdated: modern cultivars have been bred down in glycoalkaloids and are rarely bitter. Salting still works, but its real measurable effect is collapsing the air pockets and reducing oil uptake.

Where it turns up

What is made with it

1 dishes in the database use it.

Mains 1

Ali Nazik

The Gaziantep classic: charred aubergine crushed with garlicky yoghurt under sautéed lamb. The aubergine must meet fire; made with oven-roasted aubergine it is simply not the dish.

Gaziantep