Air Fried Spicy Chinese Eggplant is a light version of a traditional Chinese dish where the eggplant is typically deep fried. This is one of my favorite home-style Chinese dishes. I used to make this eggplant dish quite often, but didn’t like all the oil needed to fry the eggplant. Thankfully, I have an air fryer that eliminates the need to use a lot of oil. Not only is the cleanup a lot easier, but this dish is much healthier as well.
I love eggplant, and look forward to spying Asian eggplant at our local farmer’s market each year. Chinese people are very fond of chewy textures, so these Asian eggplants provide lots of eggplant skin to give this dish some chew.
One of the tricks I’ve read is that soaking eggplant in salt water helps flavor the eggplant and give the eggplant a silky texture. So, I soaked the eggplant in salt water for 15 minutes before air-frying it.
If you’ve ever fried eggplant, you know that it absorbs a lot of oil. So, air-frying is a great alternative if you’re looking to fry eggplant without all the extra oil. It took 15 minutes at 390 degrees to air-fry my eggplant. The skin was nice and firm/chewy and the flesh was tender. This contrasting texture is what I was looking for.
The aromatics for this air fried spicy Chinese eggplant dish are garlic, ginger, Szechuan peppercorns and Chinese chili paste.
You can keep this dish meatless, or add ground turkey (or other ground meat) as I did for some protein. I marinated the ground turkey with soy sauce and Chinese rice wine for 15 minutes (to save time, I did this while the eggplant was in the air-fryer). A little sugar, Chinese black vinegar and sesame oil are added towards the end of cooking, which rounds out the flavor in this dish.
Air Fried Spicy Chinese Eggplant
Ingredients
Air Fried Eggplant
- 1 pound Asian eggplant
- 1 tablespoon kosher salt
- 1 tablespoon oil
Spicy Eggplant Meat Sauce
- 1/2 pound ground turkey
- 2 teaspoons soy sauce
- 1 teaspoon Chinese rice wine sherry can be substituted
- 1 tablespoon oil
- 1 tablespoon garlic minced
- 1 tablespoon ginger skin removed, minced
- 1/2 teaspoon Szechuan peppercorns crushed
- 1 tablespoon Chinese chili paste I used Hunan chili paste
- 1 tablespoon Chinese rice wine
- 2 teaspoons sugar
- 2 tablespoons Chinese black vinegar balsamic vinegar can be substituted
- 1 teaspoon cornstarch
- 1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
- 1 scallion chopped
Instructions
Air Fried Eggplant
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Trim tops off eggplant. Cut eggplant into 3/4" thick pieces, about 3" in length.
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Place in a bowl. Cover with cold water and 1 tablespoon kosher salt. Let sit 15 minutes.
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Drain eggplant, rinse under cold water, and pat dry with paper towels.
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Return eggplant to dry bowl. Toss with one tablespoon oil.
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Air Fry eggplant at 390-400 degrees for about 15 minutes, until inside flesh is tender.
Spicy Eggplant Meat Sauce
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While eggplant is air-frying, prepare Eggplant Meat Sauce.
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Marinade ground turkey with soy sauce and 1 teaspoon rice wine for 15 minutes.
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Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a wok or large skillet.
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Add garlic and ginger; stir-fry until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add crushed Szechuan peppercorns and chili paste; cook for another minute.
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Add marinated meat and stir-fry until brown.
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Add rice wine, sugar, vinegar, and 3 tablespoons water. Bring to a boil; then reduce heat and add air-fried eggplant. Toss and simmer for 2-3 minutes.
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Mix cornstarch with 2 teaspoons cold water; stir into eggplant to thicken sauce.
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Drizzle with sesame oil and toss. Garnish with chopped scallions.
If you like this Chinese eggplant dish, you might also like:
Asian Grilled Eggplant with Soy Sesame Sauce
This is one of my favourite dishes! Those eggplants are so adorable…here we can only get those big chunky one…I miss the thin long white and purple eggplants. And what a great idea of using AirFryer to make this. Can’t wait to try it!
My dad used to make this when I was growing up – it is still one of my favorites!