Recipe: Eggplant Burgers

While grocery shopping on Saturday I ran across eggplants on sale for $0.88 each. They were plump and cute -- and I ended up buying two. I decided to make eggplant patties/burgers with the first eggplant, coming up with this simple recipe that turned out pretty tasty!

• 1 eggplant (cubed)
• 5 cloves of garlic (finely chopped)
• 1/2 medium onion (finely chopped)
• 0.5 cup oats
• 0.5 cup cheddar cheese (cubed)
• black pepper

I started by chopping the eggplant into cubes and microwaving it in a glass dish for 6 minutes (stirring halfway) to soften it. What I forgot to do next was mash it -- do this!

In a deep frying pan (a saucepan would also do) over low-medium heat, I fried the garlic and onion for a few minutes in a bit of olive oil.

I stirred in the eggplant and cooked it for a while to soften it (which wouldn't have been necessary had I remembered to mash it!). I then stirred in the oats, cheese, and black pepper.

I formed the eggplant mixture into eight burgers and pan-fried four while grilling the other four on the George Foreman. It turned out that pan-frying was quicker; grilling took 20 minutes due to the high water content of the eggplant. I might add an egg next time to help hold the patties together better.

For dinner, I enjoyed two of the eggplant burgers with leftover baked potato wedges and broccoli. I liked that I could really taste the eggplant and enjoyed the satisfying crispy-outside soft-inside texture. I'm sure they'd also taste great on a bun as not-your-typical veggie burger. I'll definitely be making them again!

What's your favourite way to cook eggplant?