Gochujang Eggplant Rice Bowls

Why you should try this spicy eggplant with ground meat recipe

 You’ll love this recipe! It has luscious textures with a spicy sweet kick and is super simple to make. When cooked perfectly, the eggplant’s texture literally melts in your mouth.  The combination of gochujang, miso, soy sauce and brown sugar is amazing. This is a delicious Asian eggplant dish.

You can use Chinese eggplant for this recipe. This variety has a thin skin, creamy flesh, no bitterness, is longer in shape with light purple skin and fewer seeds. However, any type of eggplant will be delicious with the hearty Gochujang sauce and ground meat. You can’t go wrong with serving it with steamed rice, but it also goes well with noodles.

Let me guide you through the recipe with this step-by-step VIDEO.

How to cook eggplant

Eggplant is a versatile vegetable and is used in many different cooking styles. From a fast eggplant sauté, baked with breadcrumbs, puréed into an earthy dip, baked or stewed in a spicy curry, the dishes are endless.

There is no harm in eating eggplant raw, but it won’t make your taste buds really happy. Best to cook eggplant before eating. Also, eggplant can taste bitter when cooked, this is why we season it with salt and pepper, simply to reduce the bitterness. However, the best way to avoid bitterness is to ensure you have a fresh eggplant and prepare it straight away. The older the eggplant, the more bitter it will taste. When selecting an eggplant, look for a tight, glossy and unblemished skin free from any brown spots.

Some of my favorite eggplant recipes are: Eggplant and zucchini rigatoni, Tomato eggplant spaghetti with meatballs, Eggplant sun- dried tomato ricotta pasta.With your leftover gochujang paste, you can try this Coconut Gochujang soup with noodles or Coconut Gochujang Chicken Meatballs recipe.

Recipe tips

• Use ground beef or pork, but you can also try lamb, turkey, chicken or a plant-based meat alternative.
• Serve with white rice, sushi rice, udon or rice noodles.
• Gochujang paste: Available in most large supermarkets or your local Asian grocery store. Different brands do produce varying heat levels. You can adjust the spiciness of your dish to your own liking, start with 1 tablespoon and add more for extra fire. Balance the spiciness with your side of rice and steamed broccoli.
  Also, double check the gochujang paste is gluten free, traditional recipes do not include wheat, but some commercial recipes will use it to add volume
• Soy sauce: low sodium soy sauce is what we need in this recipe. For a gluten free option, you can use tamari
• I prefer to use brown sugar over white sugar for the sauce as it adds depth and caramel notes to the finish.
• Scallions and cilantro are not only for garnishing but also to add a little freshness and peppery flavors to your dish, but they can be left out if you don’t like either one of them.

Storage

• Store any leftovers refrigerated in airtight containers for up to 3 days.
• You can make this recipe one day in advance, store separately in the refrigerator and reheat over medium in a nonstick skillet. 

Try these next

• Rice bowls with sticky chicken skewers
• Pork and green beans noodles
• Mongolian beef noodles