Making eggplant parmesan is an ordeal—slicing, draining, breading, frying—and that’s all before you layer it to bake. It’s well worth the effort, but I often think twice before committing to it. Or I did—until I figured out that to make the process a bit simpler and a whole lot faster, I could employ my air fryer. This handy machine can take care of a few of the most annoying steps, and put eggplant parmesan back in the regular dinner rotation.
Good eggplant parmesan has stacks of creamy eggplant coated in a light, crispy breading. These flavorful disks are then layered with tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese, resulting in a towering slice of texture on your plate. Sadly, I’ve had several eggplant parms that are too oily, or even downright soggy, which can happen if you don't take the time to drain the eggplant before you start breading it.
And that, my friends, is what we call a pain in the ass. Luckily, the air fryer can help.
Use the air fryer to prep your eggplant
Draining your eggplant can take 40 minutes to an hour. The air fryer makes the process a breeze. Instead of salting and draining the eggplant slices in a colander for an hour, you can place the slices in the air fryer at 350°F for five to seven minutes for ¼-inch to ½-inch slices.
The eggplant emerge drier and slightly flexible, but not desiccated. Place the dried slices on a wire cooling rack and do the same for your next batch of slices.
Since you’ll probably need to dry out the eggplant in a few installments, start breading them in batches to keep the process moving along. While you coat the first batch in flour, egg, and bread crumbs, the next batch will be cooling on the wire rack, and the third batch will be in the air fryer. Once you’ve breaded all of the slices, let them sit on a wire rack to let the egg dry out a bit. Then you can begin shallow-frying them on the stove top, or keep on air frying them for a lighter result.
You can air fry instead of cooking in oil too
Frying eggplant in a pan of oil bothers me because of the way the smell of cooking oil invades my apartment. Air frying avoids this, and is much more hands off. Working in small batches as you did when prepping, start air frying the first set of breaded eggplant. Spray or lightly brush them with cooking oil on both sides, and drop them into the air fryer basket. Air fry them at 350°F for about 10 minutes, flipping halfway through, or until you see a nice golden color forming. Cool the finished ones on a wire rack while you load up the next batch.
Once all your rounds are finished, you can carry on layering and baking your eggplant parm like you normally would—but I wouldn’t blame you for dipping these in a bit of soy sauce and noshing right away. Now that drying eggplant slices is so much faster, you have time to make a second batch just for snacking.