Freezing Eggplant: Freeze Breaded Eggplant for Winter Meals
Last year we didn’t harvest a single eggplant. It was very sad as I love them. It seems we either have a booming harvest or we get none. In the 12 years the hubby has been gardening I have learned a lot about how to preserve what he brings in to me but I must admit that dealing with an overload of eggplant was one of my challenges. They are not the easiest vegetables to put by. Year before last I discovered a method for how to freeze eggplant that worked quite well. I did a test run with the method of freezing eggplant that I am showing you today to see if it would work and I learned that I could freeze breaded eggplant for winter meals and have it taste almost like fresh eggplant.
Table of Contents
Note: This post may contain affiliate links, which means if you buy from my link I might make a small commission. This does not affect the price you pay. See the full affiliate disclosure here.
Freezing Eggplant – Freeze Breaded Eggplant
Anyone with a garden knows that whatever you grow comes in when it comes in. The eggplants tend to come in either one at a time or in a volume. One year he grew both Italian and Japanese and in one day he brought me this:
that is a LOT of eggplant. This year he is only growing Japanese eggplants. I don’t care – I am just happy to have eggplant! Since they don’t keep all that long and I really wanted to get some breaded eggplant in the freezer I took this first harvest and used some of it for our favorite Baked Eggplant Parmesan and the rest of it went into the freezer.
All Amazon links are affiliate links which means if you make a purchase I receive a small commission (at no additional charge to you)
How to Freeze Breaded Eggplant
It couldn’t be easier! I have put in a recipe card in for this but it’s somewhat difficult to provide the amounts as how much flour or panko you will need is completely dependent on how many eggplants you have to freeze. And if you are dealing with them as I am, it’s an ongoing process. So, I will just provide the basics and as with any breading process it’s rather a bit of a guessing game anyway. It’s below so you can print out the instructions if you would like. It really is pretty basic.
- eggplants (duh)
- all purpose flour
- salt
- eggs
- panko bread crumbs
- cooking spray
Trim and slice your eggplants into 1/4″ lengths or rounds depending on whether you have Italian or Japanese eggplants.
Preheat the oven: if you have the convect feature use it at 375, otherwise use bake at 375
Set up a breading station with a plate with flour mixed with a healthy dash of salt, egg (or eggs if you have a log) mixed with water, and panko. Start by dipping the eggplant slices in the flour.
Then drop in the egg wash, being sure to coat both sides. After that coat with panko.
Place the breaded eggplant pieces on a baking sheet and keep going until you fill the sheet. Keep going until you have coated all of your slices.
Spray the slices with cooking spray. Bake in the preheated oven for 10 minutes, turn and spray with cooking spray. Return to the oven and bake for 10 more minutes. Cool on the baking sheet or on a wire rack.
Remove the partially baked eggplant slices to a reusable container for freezing.
How to Use in Recipes
When you are ready to use your frozen breaded eggplant you just need to pull out as many slices as you need for your meal out of the freezer. You can pop them into a preheated oven and finish cooking; they will need about 5 – 10 minutes on each side to be slightly crunchy on the outside and nice and soft on the inside. You can also use these slices in an eggplant lasagna if you would like or a more traditional eggplant parmesan. Since I am getting more breaded eggplant in the freezer this year I will have plenty for experimenting this winter so that will be fun!
I have also started heating these up in my airfryer. They come out delightfully crunchy and taste like fried eggplant. Cook them at 340 for about 7 minutes on each side after spraying with cooking spray. If you are going for eggplant parm and adding cheese you will need to cook a few minutes longer on the second side to get the cheese all melty.
