Should You Really Salt Aubergine Before Cooking It?

I love a good cooking hack, whether it’s the Gordon Ramsay-approved technique of removing the slimy middles of cucumbers for your salad or Mary Berry’s semolina coating for extra-crispy roast potatoes.

Which means that for years, I salted my aubergines before cooking them. I grew up hearing that it took that bitter taste from the veg and improved its texture.

But on Nigella Lawson’s site entry about her At My Table beef and aubergine fatteh recipe, the chef’s team recommended skipping the step.

After a deeper dive, I learned that everyone from Nigel Slater to Ottolenghi avoids pre-salting for the majority of aubergine dishes.

There are a few reasons people do this, including:

1. Removing their bitter flavour,
2. Drawing out moisture for a crispier/less mushy result.

We’ll deal with these one by one.

Nigella’s site reads: “Some people recommend salting the aubergines before cooking, to draw out any bitter juices. However, most modern aubergines do not have this problem and are quite mild”.

Culinary publication Food and Wine agrees. They write that aubergines date back to 50BC, when the plant was indeed very bitter. They argue that the practice of salting them may have started long, long ago (we don’t know who by), and passed down even though farmers have been growing select, less-bitter veg for generations now.

“Today, most eggplants available at the grocery store and farmer’s market are bred without bitterness,” the publication shared.

In case you needed any more convincing, chef Nigel Slater and cooking bible Larousse Gastronomique agree it doesn’t make the plant less bitter. “The process of degorging [salting] is no longer necessary as commercially cultivated aubergines are not as bitter as they used to be,” the iconic cooking book said.

Verdict: salting an aubergine is not likely to make it less bitter.

Salting very moisture-heavy veg, like courgettes, is undeniably useful when prepping them for e.g. fritters. Salt draws moisture out of the produce, which you can then squeeze through a muslin cloth for a drier, crispier fry; I did this just yesterday for some mucver.

Bitter or not, aubergine does not change the nature of osmosis. It’s true that salt always draws moisture from vegetables.

But the question of whether or not that actually makes it easier to crisp up is not as easy to answer as you might think. Food and Wine said that salting aubergines to dry them is a “double-edged sword for the ultra-absorbent” veg.

Drier aubergine may be less able to take on flavours, they say. On the plus side, it could, in theory, take on less fat when frying, which may make it crispier.

However, a Guardian journalist tried the method and said that while the salted version took up less oil at first, both salted and unsalted versions ended up absorbing the same amount of fat when they fried them. They also said the end results were basically identical, flavour and texture-wise.

Sara Jenkins, chef and owner of Porsena in New York City, said that she doesn’t bother when pan-frying aubergine. “I have rarely found an eggplant that is so bitter that it needs salting. I just cut it up, toss the pieces with olive oil, and start cooking,” she told Epicurious.

Her only exception is deep-frying.

A New York Times Cooking recipe shared another, salt-free way to stop fried aubergine from becoming mushy: “Eggplant is known to absorb liquid like a sponge, so here’s a trick: oil the slices (lightly) just before they hit the pan [instead of laying them in fat] to ensure that they are not oil-logged,” they wrote.

For roasting or baking, recipe tester Anna Theoktisto said it’s not worth the extra time, as aubergine that cooks for that long of a time inevitably breaks down anyway. Ottolenghi omits the step for his roasting recipes, too.

Verdict: Salting might make aubergine crispier when frying, though cooks have seen mixed results, and many chefs don’t bother. For roasting, grilling, baking, marinating, and stewing, lots of experts advise against salting.