This Chinese eggplant dish is traditionally fried in oil first, which softens the skin of the eggplant. This instant pot eggplant recipe allows you to skip the part which requires you to fry it with copious amounts of oil, and simply allow you to saute it instead.
I absolutely love it as a weekday side. I love cooking eggplant, but its a bit timely and the cooking time on this dish is legitimately no more than 6 minutes!
Let’s get started!
First mince up a couple of garlic and chop up your eggplant into carrot stick sized pieces.
Next grab your instant pot and press the saute button twice to brown your eggplant
Add the bean paste directly into the hot pot and saute until fragrant.
Next add in the garlic, soy sauce, sugar, and cornstarch mix
And now you’re basically done! Just set your instant pot to “pressure cooker” (high) for 4 minutes and get ready for dinner.
This is a great side or it can make a meal atop of rice also. Sometimes I’ll saute some ground pork and add it to the mix for an even heartier weeknight meal.
Instant Pot Recipe: Braised Chinese Eggplant
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 lbs Asian Eggplants
- 1/4 cup chicken stock
- 1 1/2 tbsp Chili Bean Paste
- 4 tsp sliced garlic
- 1 tsp tsp white sugar
- 1/2 tsp soy sauce
- 1 tsp cornstarch mixed with 1 tablespoon cold water
- 1 tsp sesame oil
- 1 green onion for topping
Instructions
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Cut the eggplant in half and into 3 inch sections
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Press sauté on your instant pot or pressure cooker, press the button another time - to switch it to the "more" mode - which will brown your eggplant. Add a light layer of vegetable oil to cover the bottom of the pot.
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Let the oil heat up, once hot, add the chili bean paste for 20 seconds. Next, add the garlic and stirfry briefly until fragrant.
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Add the chicken stock, sugar, and soy sauce and mix. Taste and salt if needed.
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Add all the eggplants into the sauce.
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Next set the instant pot to "Pressure Cooker" (high) for 4 minutes.
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Open up the pot and stir in the cornstarch mixture to thicken the sauce. Mix in green onions until the onions are no longer raw. Plate the eggplant and finish with sesame oil
thanks for this – should that be the low pressure cooker setting or high?
Thanks for asking! Setting should be on high, adding it to the recipe also!
How much vinegar? How much green onion?
There isn’t any vinegar in this recipe? One green onion chopped works great!
Step 7 says “ Open up the pot and stir in the cornstarch mixture to thicken the sauce. Mix in the vinegar and green onions until the onions are no longer raw. Plate the eggplant and finish with sesame oil”
If we don’t add vinegar what is supposed to be added in step 7??
Sorry for the confusing instructions! Here are the correct Step 7 instructions: Open up the pot and stir in the cornstarch mixture to thicken the sauce. Mix in green onions until the onions are no longer raw. Plate the eggplant and finish with sesame oil