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This eggplant meatballs recipe is absolutely delicious! Made with garlic and Parmesan, the meatballs have a surprisingly juicy texture. Serve with pasta and marinara for a satisfying dinner!
Ever tried making meatballs—with eggplant? We’d been hearing for years that eggplant makes great vegetarian meatballs, but we didn’t believe it: until now. We created this delicious eggplant meatballs recipe that’s gone on to become a family and fan favorite!
Garlic, herbs, breadcrumbs and Parmesan cheese make one insanely juicy and savory meatball. Roasted eggplant makes them moist and textured, instead of dry or mushy like lots of vegetarian balls. Combine it with marinara sauce and it’s out of this world delicious. In fact, after our first bite, we yelled “Wow!” (True story.)
Featured reader comments
“Good GOD, these are amazing! Even BETTER, everything held together well!
I can see these served with polenta, made into burgers, stuffed into peppers or mushrooms…the possibilities are endless! Thank you for my new most favorite recipe, I will be making these often!” -Cindy
Ingredients for eggplant meatballs
It’s a short ingredient list here! All you’ll need to make eggplant meatballs is the following:
- Eggplant: you’ll need 2 pounds, which is about 3 medium or 2 large eggplants (it’s helpful to weigh out exactly at the store).
- Garlic: Make sure to use only fresh garlic: no substitutes!
- Jarred sundried tomatoes: This ingredient adds meaty, savory flavor to the balls.
- Italian panko: Panko are large, fluffy breadcrumbs. You’ll need to locate the Italian version, which has added salt and herbs. See below for more!
- Grated Parmesan cheese: Make sure it’s the powdery stuff: not shredded, which looks like little sticks!
Why to roast the eggplant small diced, skin on
The key to these eggplant meatballs is roasting the eggplant chopped very small, then mash it with a potato masher before forming the balls. Here’s why:
- Roasting with the eggplant skin on makes the very best juicy, meaty texture that’s incredibly satisfying. You’ll have some chunks in the meatballs: but that’s good!
- Using a food processor or blender or removing the eggplant skin makes a texture that’s gooey rather than meaty: not nearly as delicious. Speaking of…
A few tips on forming eggplant meatballs
These eggplant meatballs have lots of texture to the dough, which can make forming them a little different than say, falafel. Here are a few tips on the forming process:
- Include the eggplant skin right into the the balls: try to evenly disperse them throughout each meatball.
- You can also discard a few of the skin pieces if it’s hard to form the balls. But again, the skins and chewy parts are what you need for a meaty, interesting texture: so don’t worry that it’s not a smooth dough!
Storing leftovers & make ahead notes
In total, this eggplant meatballs recipe takes about 1 hour to make. We’re obsessed with fast and easy recipes around here, as you may know. But this recipe is so good, it’s absolutely worth the 1 hour prep time! Here’s what to know about planning and meal prep to make it fit into your lifestyle:
- Eggplant meatballs save very well: you can refrigerate or freeze! If you can make them ahead, it makes dinner time a breeze! Store them refrigerated for up to 5 days or frozen for up to 3 months, stored in a single layer in a freezer safe container.
- To reheat, simply warm them in a skillet with marinara. That’s it! So easy.
- Or, make them on a weekend or when time allows. If you have the time, it’s a perfect recipe for a Saturday or Sunday dinner.
Ways to make it a meal
Take one bite of these eggplant meatballs and you’ll be amazed by the amount of flavor. Don’t even think of them as a vegetarian meatball—they’re just delicious. The only thing that’s required is the marinara sauce (use your favorite jar), but pasta is optional. Here are a few ways you can eat these eggplant meatballs:
- Over pasta. Try them with bucatini (like hollow spaghetti), or GF or legume pasta for gluten free.
- With a salad. Add a arugula salad, goat cheese salad, fennel orange salad, fennel salad, frisee salad, endive salad, or Italian salad.
- With broccoli and couscous or quinoa. Make our pan fried broccoli and whip up a pan of couscous or seasoned quinoa.
- Zucchini noodles or spaghetti squash. Zucchini noodles are easy to make or purchase. If you’re feeling ambitious, serve with roasted spaghetti squash or Instant Pot spaghetti squash.
- With sautéed veggies. Add these colorful ultimate sauteed veggies.
Dietary notes
This eggplant meatballs recipe is vegetarian. For gluten-free, use gluten-free panko.
Best-Ever Eggplant Meatballs
This eggplant meatballs recipe is absolutely delicious! Made with garlic and Parmesan, the meatballs have a surprisingly juicy texture. Serve with pasta and marinara for a satisfying dinner!
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 50 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour
- Yield: 20 meatballs (4 servings) 1x
- Category: Main dish
- Method: Baked
- Cuisine: Italian inspired
- Diet: Vegetarian
Ingredients
- ¼ cup olive oil
- 2 pounds eggplant (3 medium or 2 large, about 12 cups diced into 1/2-inch pieces)
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 tablespoon jarred sun-dried tomatoes, finely chopped
- 1 ¼ cups Italian panko (use gluten free as needed)*
- ½ cup grated Parmesan cheese (not shredded)
- Freshly ground black pepper
- For serving, 1 large jar marinara sauce, 8 to 12 ounces spaghetti or bucatini pasta or zucchini noodles
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Cut the eggplant into 1/2-inch chunks by slicing 1/2-inch rings and then cutting the rings into cubes. The size of dice is important for the final texture! (If you weren’t able to weigh the eggplant, measure out 12 cups 1/2-inch diced).
- In a large bowl, quickly mix the eggplant with olive oil and kosher salt (the eggplant soaks up the oil in an instant, so mix as soon as you add it!). Pour the eggplant onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and spread it into an even layer.
- Roast for 25 minutes, then stir and roast 10 minutes more until browned and very tender. Remove and reduce the oven heat to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Add the warm eggplant to a bowl and mash it with a potato masher until chunky and mostly mashed. Stir in the minced garlic, finely chopped sundried tomatoes, Italian panko and grated Parmesan cheese. Taste and add any salt to taste (we added only 1 pinch; remember that the marinara sauce will also add flavor after baking).
- Use your hands to form the dough into 20 balls. You’ll include the eggplant skin right into the the balls: try to evenly disperse them throughout each meatball. You can also discard a few of the skins if it’s hard to form the balls. But the skins and chewy parts are what you need for a meaty, interesting texture: so don’t worry that it’s not a smooth dough! See the photos above.
- Place the meatballs on a parchment lined baking sheet. Bake 18 to 20 minutes until lightly browned on top and very browned on the bottom. Allow to cool for 5 minutes, or longer if desired (the balls will firm up). At this point, you can serve immediately, refrigerate for 1 week or freeze for up to 3 months (in a single layer in a freezer safe container). While the meatballs bake, you can boil the pasta or prep the zucchini noodles.
- To serve, add the marinara sauce to a skillet and add the meatballs in a single layer. Heat for 1 to 2 minutes until warmed. Serve over the noodles, then top with grated Parmesan cheese (and chopped fresh basil, if desired). You can also serve as a vegetarian main dish with a few sides, like broccoli and couscous, rice or quinoa.
Notes
*We recommend Italian panko for the best results. If all you can find is regular panko, use 1 ¼ cups regular panko, mixed with ½ teaspoon kosher salt and 2 tablespoons Italian seasoning (or 1 tablespoon dried oregano and ½ tablespoon each dried basil and thyme). If you can’t find panko at all, you can substitute coarse breadcrumbs — the texture of store-bought is very fine, so chunkier homemade breadcrumbs are ideal (but you can use either). Italian breadcrumbs work in a pinch; adjust the salt to taste. If you eat gluten-free, you can find gluten-free panko online.
More eggplant recipes
Eggplant is one unexpectedly delicious vegetable, when you cook it correctly! Here are some more eggplant recipes to try:
- Try stunning and delicious eggplant Parmesan, eggplant lasagna or eggplant rollatini.
- Go classic with roasted eggplant or sauteed eggplant.
- Simmer a pot of ratatouille and dollop with pistou, the French version of pesto.
- Try Japanese eggplant, eggplant pizza, eggplant caponata or roasted eggplant pasta.
Can I just leave out the sun dried tomatoes or will this mess up the finished product? Making for a family member with special dietary preferences
I love this recipe BTW!
You could just omit but they really make the dish great! Maybe you could do half?
OMG.
I came upon this recipe,mas I had a plethora of eggplant from my garden, and we needed a ‘new’ way to serve it….Good GOD, these are amazing!!! So good, in fact, that after I used my garden eggplants, I went to farm store and bought additional eggplants, just so I could make a stash of these for the freezer!
Second batch, I reduced the panko and upped the other ingredients. I also added an additional hefty pinch of fresh Italian herbs. Even BETTER, and yes, everything still held together well!
I can see these served with polenta, made into burgers (with a schmear of marinara and a slice of provolone), stuffed into peppers or mushrooms…..the possibilities are endless!
Thank you for my new most favorite recipe, I will be making these often, and in many ways!!!
So glad you enjoyed! Thank you for making them :)
I am soooo tired of reading comments from those who “don’t follow the recipe exactly.” What makes you think anyone is interested in your “improvements”? This is a wonderful, delicious easy-to-follow recipe as is.
If refrigerated, what’s the best way to heat these back up? Looks good, can’t wait to try this out!
Should the jarred sun dried tomatoes be in oil? Thanks.
Yes
These are DELICIOUS but I’m curious what kind of eggplant you use that requires 2-3 to get 2 lb.? I had one firm large eggplant, standard grocery produce size that was just shy half an ounce under 2 lb. Also, you must make very tiny meatballs – I only got 13 1″ balls. I will definitely make these again, but will need to adjust the quantity of eggplant to keep the 1″ meatball size to get 20.
I agree with Joy that they would be awesome with polenta.
The whole family LOvED these! Easy to make and they have a great taste and texture! There were no leftovers, for sure! (Only one of the four of us is vegetarian so they are carnivore approved!)
I followed the eggplant meatball recipe and they were delicious but I was a little disappointed as they didn’t really firm up. I didn’t have panko breadcrumbs only Italian so I am thinking that was it, unless I served them too hot. Thanks
So I was blessed with an over abundance of many white and purple eggplant from my garden. Picked 10# yesterday and still have some going pending Ohio’s first frost (greatfully delayed this year).
Anywho on my search for eggplant recipes for freezing purposes I came across this wonderfully awesome recipe!
While I didn’t follow your recipe exactly, these meatballs came out fantastic when finished in a marinara sauce (made from the dwindling supply of garden tomatoes of course).
The differences I did was that I started with 3.8# of purple and white eggplant. The couple of larger white varieties were just sliced in half and roasted. The rest were diced as directed, mostly the purple ones. I grated up a medium yellow onion and added to the seasoned panko along with the sundried tomatoes then finally chopped up the meat of the roasted halves and mixed in with the panko. Spices adjusted to my tastes. In the fridge over nite because it was late.
Using my grandmothers old meatballer (which sucks for shaping but great for sizing and explains why I see them at garage sales often🤪). I made 30 perfect bites of joy and still have enough left for about 12-18 more meatballs. The big batch went in the oven. The smaller batch is going to get air-fried later today.
While they hold together fantastically, very light and the flavor is awesome I do think they were just a bit, a bit mushy on the inside. That’s probably from Not quite enough panko. My fault, I really suck at measuring out some things.
One last thing. Once everything was mixed together after cooking the end weight was 2lbs 12 oz. so there was substantial moisture loss during the roasting process.
Your recipe rocks and thank you so much for the inspiration. I’ll be perusing your culinary collection for sure.
So glad you enjoyed them! Thank you for commenting :)
I always add an egg or two to my meatballs. Did you try that ingredient in the testing phase?
We did not try it but I bet it would work out (you may need to add a little extra breadcrumbs.)
How do you think this would work as air fried vs baking?
It should work but I’m not sure on the timing. You’d just have to keep an eye on it.
Why would your roasting time for eggplant pieces in your meatball recipe be different than your roasting time for JUST eggplant pieces?
Hi! They are both written to be approximately 35 minutes. The slices for the meatballs are a bit smaller so should roast just a little bit faster.
The introductory description of this recipe says. …”For this mojo sauce, simply throw almonds into a blender with garlic, jarred roasted bell peppers, smoked paprika, and cumin, which add a depth of flavor….”
But the recipe itself omits the smoked paprika.
You are correct! We’ve removed “smoked paprika” from the description — it is not in the recipe. Also I believe comment was for the Eggplant Involtini recipe (not the meatballs, which are in this post!) — so for clarity that’s the recipe that was updated. Thanks so much!
I made these last night…best veggie meatballs I’ve ever had! The recipe was fun to make and not too complicated and the results were DELICIOUS!!!
So glad you enjoyed! Thanks for making :)
Loved this recipe! Super easy to make and tasted delicious
Delicious! I love these. I will be making them again and again.
So glad you enjoyed!
These were delicious and worth the time spent to make! They were full of flavor even with gluten free breadcrumbs and vegan Parmesan cheese. I will definitely make these again.
Ooo amazing! Thank you so much for making them!!
I wasn’t sure what to expect but I was pleasantly surprised… Your eggplant meatball recipe is DEEEEEEELICIOUS!!! I added them to an oven roasted tomato medley with fresh herbs, served over brown rice threads and topped with parmesan cheese. Soooo good! Thank you for sharing your recipes, I look forward to trying more!
So glad you enjoyed. Thank you!
Can you make this recipe in an air fryer?
Probably but we don’t have one to offer timing!
These are on my to make menu. Am thinking over polenta would be really amazing. I love that ingredients are few.