Best Eggplant with Garlic Sauce Recipe

Eggplant with Garlic Sauce or Yuxiang Eggplant is a Sichuan staple and it has a signature sweet and sour taste combined with Sichuan Doubanjiang (broad bean chili paste), making it irresistible! It is also a dish that most westerners enjoy because of its flavor. YuXiang means “fish fragrant”. This dish uses traditional seasoning for fish dishes to make eggplant tastes amazing, even better than real fish! Although it is made with eggplant, it is not a vegetarian dish. Minced pork is added to this dish.

Is it healthy? Hmmmm it depends! Traditionally the eggplant is deep fried prior to stir fry. In this recipe, we will try to keep it a little more healthy and on the more accessible side for home cooks! The eggplant is pan fried with less oil in this case. 

Serve the classic Chinese eggplant with garlic sauce with rice.

To achieve the classic “YuXiang” or “fish fragrant” taste, you’ll need garlic, ginger, green onion, doubanjiang (fermented broad bean chili paste) and Sichuan pickled peppers for seasoning. Additionally, Chinese vinegar and light soy sauce are required.

Instructions

1. Wash eggplant and cut it using rolling knife (滚刀）style. If you aren’t sure, watch my video for the tutorial. 

2. Cover eggplant with a thin layer of corn starch, mix well.

3. Finely chop garlic, ginger, green onion, Doubanjiang, pickled peppers.

4. Mix ingredients for YuXiang Sauce.

5. Fry eggplant on a non-stick pan until slightly brown. Turn the eggplant occasionally to fry the other sides. Remove from the pan and set aside.

6. Add in some oil and cook minced pork. Add in garlic, ginger, green onion (white part), doubanjiang (fermented broad bean chili paste), pickled pepper. Stir fry.

7. Mix up the YuXiang Sauce before pouring it in the pan. Let the sauce boil over medium low heat. Reduce heat if it is too hot, this can thicken the sauce too quickly.

8. Add in the eggplants. Stir well. Top with green onion and serve.