Vegan Eggplant Meatballs

Eggplant meatballs are the perfect alternatives for your traditional meatballs. You can add these meatless eggplants to your marinara and pour on the pasta, noodles, or zoodles.

These are great as appetizers or as entrees too. If you are a great fan of eggplants, try my other eggplant recipes here. When we look for

Meatballs are normally minced meat that is flavored with spices and deep-fried or baked. These eggplant eggplants are a meatless alternative to those authentic meatballs. There are other ways to make vegetarian meatballs like falafel using chickpeas.

You can make these eggplant meatballs with fire-roasted eggplants, baked eggplants, or air-fried eggplants. You can roast them on direct fire or in an oven or air fryer. But I love it with smoked flavored. The smoky flavor makes the eggplants delicious. You can also add liquid smoke if you love the smoky flavor.

Eggplant by texture is spongy with a soft meaty body. And this makes one of the best meatless eggplant made with vegetables. These meatless meatballs are too good for me. I love them. The best part is these are versatile. You can serve them as appetizers or as entrees.

How to make eggplant meatballs?

Ingredients

Eggplant – Take the large eggplants as they are more fleshy.

Mushroom – Button mushrooms

Onions – or onion powder

Minced Garlic – or garlic powder

Bread crumbs – for binding. I have taken panko crumbs. You can also take normal crumbs.

Nutritional yeast – for that cheesy flavor

Chickpea flour – can also substitute with white beans or garbanzo beans

Seasoning – salt & pepper

Herbs – fresh cilantro leaves + parsley

Instructions to make the eggplant meatballs

Clean the eggplant and look for any bugs or holes.

Roast eggplant 3 ways –

Place it on a grill and roast for 5 – 7 minutes or till the skin started to turn burnt.

Once the eggplant is roasted well, remove from grill and allow it to cool for sometime. Then scrap out the skin and remove the flesh to a mixing bowl.

You can also roast the eggplant in an oven for 15 – 20 minutes at 400F.

Air fry the eggplants and mushrooms for 10 minutes at 400 F.

Blend veggies and prepare the mixture

Now transfer them to a food processor and pulse to blend the veggies. Then add other ingredients and spices. Blend to a smooth yet tight paste.

If the mixture is not tight binding or little moisture then add some more panko crumbs or bread crumbs. It will absorb the excess moisture.

Shape the meatballs and fry/ bake

Now grease the palm and take out a spoon full of mixture and make roundels.

Now either deep fry or bake or air fry the eggplant meatballs till it turns crispy.

Deep frying – Heat oil in a pan. Drop the balls and fry till it’s crispy and turns golden brown.

Bake – Preheat the oven at 400 F. Place the prepared meatballs on a greased baking tray. Bake them for 20 – 25 minutes or till it turns crispy.

Air fry – preheat the air fryer at 375 F for 5 minutes. Place the balls inside the air fryer basket. Set the timer to 12 minutes. Preheat is not compulsory. But this reduces the cooking time definitely. Depending on the type of air fryer preheat or skip. Turn at around 8 minutes and flip carefully with help of a tong. If you require some more crispy, increase the timer to 3 minutes more, checking at every 1 minute.

Recipe card for eggplant meatballs

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