This Eggplant Dip is a traditional Romanian eggplant dip or spread, known as “salata de vinete”, served with bread, made with only 4 ingredients. Super easy to nake and incredibly delicious!
I’m really happy to share this recipe with you today because it’s one I grew up with! It’s my mom’s recipe and we’ve been making this for as long as I can remember. I mentioned before, I’m not crazy about eggplants, but this dish is one of my favorites, honestly.
What Is “Salata De Vinete”?
“Salata de vinete” simply means eggplant salad, though it really isn’t a salad and more of a dip or spread. This dip is quite similar to the Greek version which is called Melitzanosalata. This recipe is as Romanian as it gets, which is one of the reasons I love to whip it out for guests who might not be super familiar with Romanian cuisine. With just 4 ingredients this dip or spread really exemplifies that simple, quality ingredients can come together and make magic happen.
We want to make sure the eggplants are either roasted or grilled until they are fork tender and easy to peel. As a result, this eggplant dip has a real nice and smoky flavor. I’ll include a section below detailing how to best prepare your eggplant, for novices and kitchen pros alike! If you’re a fan of baba ganoush, get ready to meet your new favorite eggplant delicacy.
Ingredients Notes
- Oil – Traditionally we use sunflower oil. If you can’t find it use another neutral tasting oil, just not olive oil. Olive oil has a very strong flavor, we want more of a mildly flavored oil.
- Eggplant – We’re using 4 large eggplants today to get lots of dip.
- Onion – Whatever kind of onion you’d like. We won’t be cooking down this onion, instead it will be introduced raw so use an onion variety that is a bit more mild if you’d like.
- Seasoning – Just salt to taste.
How To Make Eggplant Dip
- Cook the eggplant: You can either grill the eggplants or roast them in the oven at 375 degrees. Place them on a baking sheet, poke some holes in the eggplants with a fork, this is a very important step. If you don’t poke them, you’ll risk them exploding in the oven. Make sure they are baked really well, for about 45 minutes, turning them every 15 minutes using a pair of tongs. Once they are done, let them cool completely.
- Peel the eggplants: Once cooled start peeling them using a knife. If you’ve cooked them enough, the peel should come off easily. Make sure to remove any of the dark peel. Transfer them to a colander over a bowl and let them drain for about 20 minutes. You want to extract as much water out of them as possible.
- Blend the dip: Place the eggplants in a food processor, add the onion, salt and oil and pulse a few times until smooth. Chill for about 30 minutes before serving, it’s best served cold.
FAQs
Besides nice crusty bread to spread this dip over, to then be topped with some sliced tomatoes, there’s definitely some other perfect accompaniments. This dish is vegan, gluten free, and nut free so it’s perfect for a crowd! Some other suggestions are pita bread, crackers, carrot sticks, sliced cucumbers, tortilla chips, bell pepper slices, or celery sticks.
While they may be a bit similar, this eggplant dip is really about the eggplants. The eggplants are the star ingredient in this dish and it’s about its smoky flavor, with very few other ingredients added. Just a bit of oil, a bit of onion and salt to flavor the dip. Whereas baba ganoush has a few other ingredients where one of the main one is tahini. They may look similar but flavor wise they are different.
Some Tips
- It’s critical to poke holes in your eggplant before baking it, once I forgot to poke holes in the eggplants, and they literally exploded in my oven.
- Be sure to let the dip cool completely in the fridge before serving it, this will ensure the texture and flavor are right.
- You can add fresh garlic if you’d like, be sure to add it once the dip is blended.
- Don’t use olive oil in your dip, use more of a mildly flavored oil.
- For a more creamier dip, try adding a bit of mayonnaise to it when blending. It’s really great!
Leftovers
You can store this eggplant dip in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 1 week. This recipe also freezes well too, freeze for up to 3 months and allow to thaw completely before feasting.
More Eastern European Delicacies To Try
- Romanian Meatball Soup
- Cabbage Rolls
- Creamy Polenta
- Romanian Meatballs
- Traditional Romanian Polenta
- Cabbage Soup
- Hungarian Goulash
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Eggplant Dip (Salata de vinete)
Equipment
Ingredients
- 4 large eggplants
- ¼ cup sunflower oil or any mildly flavored vegetable oil
- ½ small onion roughly chopped
- ½ teaspoon salt or to taste
Instructions
- Cook the eggplant: You can either grill the eggplants or roast them in the oven at 375 degrees. Place them on a baking sheet, poke some holes in the eggplants with a fork, this is a very important step. If you don't poke them, you'll risk them exploding in the oven. Make sure they are baked really well, for about 45 minutes, turning them every 15 minutes using a pair of tongs. Once they are done, let them cool completely.
- Peel the eggplants: Once cooled start peeling them using a knife. If you've cooked them enough, the peel should come off easily. Make sure to remove any of the dark peel. Transfer them to a colander over a bowl and let them drain for about 20 minutes. You want to extract as much water out of them as possible.
- Blend the dip: Place the eggplants in a food processor, add the onion, salt and oil and pulse a few times until smooth. Chill for about 30 minutes before serving, it's best served cold.
Recipe Notes
- It’s critical to poke holes in your eggplant before baking it, once I forgot to poke holes in the eggplants, and they literally exploded in my oven.
- Be sure to let the dip cool completely in the fridge before serving it, this will ensure the texture and flavor are right.
- You can add fresh garlic if you’d like, be sure to add it once the dip is blended.
- Don’t use olive oil in your dip, use more of a mildly flavored oil.
- For a more creamier dip, try adding a bit of mayonnaise to it when blending. It’s really great!
- You can store this dip in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 1 week. This recipe also freezes well too, freeze for up to 3 months and allow to thaw completely before feasting.
Oh – Finally! I was able to recreate my MIL’s famous Salata de Vinete – thank you! This is literally my favourite food in the world.
It’s perfect, especially now that summer is coming, it’s one of my favorite things to eat with fresh tomatoes!
I’ve tried to recreate this dish half a dozen times, it wasn’t until I found this recipe that I was able to do it successfully! My only tip: the longer your roast the eggplant the better!
I made this recipe for my American friends and everyone loved it. We had it with pita chips. Personally, this recipe reminded me of my Romanian comfort food.
I followed tip and used sunflower oil BUT the pictured ingredients show clearly marked OLIVE oil.
Confused? I followed the written TIP .
It’s clearly marked vegetable oil, not sure what you’re talking about! 🙂 Just joking, fixed that image. It’s supposed to be vegetable oil. Thanks for catching that. 🙂
Can I use a hand blender for this instead of a regular blender? I’m going to try it anyway but thought I’d ask!
Yeah, it should be fine.
Romanian wifey approved, nough said