Vegetarian Eggplant Meatballs

I made these tonight with a few changes in the preparation. The recipe doesn't state eggplant size, mine was almost a pound. I chose not to peel my eggplant, but the skins did look like burnt pieces in my meatballs. I also used 1 tsp dried basil in place of the fresh. I sautéed the onion and eggplant for about 20 minutes, placed in a blender to make a paste, then added the seasonings, cheese and panko. I got 12 meatballs using 1/8 cup scoop. I prepped them 4 hours ahead of time, placed in the fridge on a cookie sheet until I was ready to bake. Let come to room temp while the oven preheated. Baked for 30 minutes turning every 6 minutes. We thought they were good, but a bit flavorless. So next time I will adjust the seasonings to our tastes. I served it on a bed of pasta with pasta sauce. I will make this recipe again, thanks for sharing!

I had originally planned on making spaghetti and real meatballs but since my guest was a vegetarian that obviously wouldn't work out so i chose these and they were pretty fantastic. I added one egg to the room temperature mixture before adding a good amount of parmesan cheese and panko crumbs and then threw them in the oven and flipped every 10 minutes till all sides were browned nicely. Once they were done i let them cook for 10 minutes in my tomato sauce and served over spaghetti. Thanks for this recipe! Saved my meal.

Came out great! Made some sauce over top of it with some Parmesan shavings and was delicious!

Easy to make. I've mad enough them twice, the second time using a food processor which came out better. Used them both in pasta and on a skewer as an appetizer. Very tasty.

Very tasty! Served them with spaghetti sauce and they were delicious. I had a medium sized eggplant and it made 8 balls. The only change I made was to put the cubed eggplant in the food processor to chop the eggplant before cooking with the onions. When I mixed the eggplant onion mixture with bread crumbs (I just puréed two slices of light whole wheat bread) And Parmesan, at first I didn’t think it was going to stick together but I pressed it together as I mixed and it was the perfect consistency. I turned the balls every 10 minutes. Done in 30 minutes. Thanks!

Meh. Texture came out spongy, not like meatballs and not particularly good to chew. Taste was not bad, thanks to doubling the herbs and adding about a tablespoon of tomato paste. I made these because I had a vegetarian guest for dinner and needed something to substitute for the meatballs everyone else was eating. Ended up just increasing her pasta portion. Wastes of ingredients.

I soaked the eggplant in salt water and squeezed the salt water out before frying.

Followed the recipe and these turned out great! Once they're baked they look and feel like regular meatballs. Great with bolognese sauce and spaghetti. A vegetarian lifesaver!

Excellent. Will make again, my family loved it!!

Not sure what went wrong with this one but my meatballs would not hold their shape. I can only assume it's because I used regular Italian style breadcrumbs instead of panko, as the rest of the recipe was followed exactly. The "eggplant mush" did taste good regardless - I ate it with a spoon.

Six servings Barb

So delicious added it to pasta and marinara sauce love it