Chinese eggplant with garlic sauce, or “fish fragrant eggplant” (yuxiang qiezi) is a familiar dish in many American Chinese restaurants and buffets these days, but it’s also a dish with many authentic variations in China, and we’re long overdue on sharing our version of this much-loved classic.
In most cases, Chinese restaurants make this Chinese eggplant with garlic sauce dish by deep frying the eggplant, resulting in very tasty, soft eggplant, but also a very oily dish.
You may be familiar with the fact that any eggplant soaks up oil like a sponge (eggplant parm, anyone?). There’s no doubt that deep frying makes the dish tasty, but there are definitely healthier ways to go about making this dish at home that don’t sacrifice any of the restaurant’s flavor.
The secret? Scorching the eggplant in your wok to soften it…and including crispy, chewy, caramelized ginger, garlic, and bits of ground pork.
If you don’t eat pork, you can substitute ground chicken or turkey, or leave the meat out altogether. If you prefer chicken over eggplant then be sure to look at our chicken with garlic sauce recipe.
I made this Chinese eggplant with garlic sauce for dinner last week, and it was almost immediately declared one of the best versions we’d ever had. That crispy pork and scorched eggplant is like magic.
Chinese Eggplant with Garlic Sauce: Recipe Instructions
Start by making the sauce mixture. In a small bowl, combine the spicy bean paste (la doubanjiang), sesame oil, soy sauce, sugar, shaoxing wine, and fish sauce. Set aside.
Wash the Chinese eggplants, cut the ends off and slice them into equal sized pieces. After slicing, separate the green and white portions of the scallions into roughly two piles.
Over very high heat, heat a tablespoon of oil in your wok. Add half of the eggplant and let it sear until brown on all sides.
You can lower the heat if it looks like they’re starting to burn. You want to cook the eggplant for about 5 minutes until they start to get soft and have a nice sear.
Take this first batch of eggplant out of the pan, heat a second tablespoon of oil, and do the same with your second batch. Set all the cooked eggplant aside on a plate.
Set the heat to medium high and add the last tablespoon of oil to the wok, along with the ground pork.
After the pork has browned, add the ginger and cook for a minute to let it crystalize with the pork.
Stir in the dried red chilies and the minced garlic, and after a minute, turn the heat back up to high.
Add the Chinese eggplant back in, along with the stir-fry sauce, the white parts of the scallions, and the Shaoxing wine.
Stir-fry everything together for another 2 minutes, making sure everything is well-combined.
Toss in the rest of the scallions and stir-fry for another 20 seconds.
Serve your Chinese Eggplant with Garlic sauce immediately with rice!
This Chinese eggplant with garlic sauce uses a fraction of the oil in restaurant versions and is a game changing healthy dish!
