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It’s grilling season! A clinical study showed Mazola® Corn Oil reduces cholesterol 2x more than extra virgin olive oil. To learn more about this claim, visit MAZOLA.com.
This Grilled Eggplant Salad is marinated, grilled, and topped with whipped ricotta, pesto, quartered tomatoes, and fresh herbs.
Our spring garden is small this year, but we are slowly adding to it week by week.
This year the bunnies have been loving our lettuce (they ate it all up!), but luckily it’s just me who has been picking all of our fresh herbs.
Currently, we have mint, parsley, sweet basil, and purple basil growing in our garden. The mint popped up from what we had planted last year, but the latter 3 are all new that we planted in April.
As the weather warms up, I’m sure you are going to enjoy spending more time outside, maybe even grilling with your immediate family. You may even utilize a grill to prep an individual meal.
While we don’t have an outdoor grill, our cast iron skillet grill is our go-to for creating summer grilling recipes at home along with Mazola® Corn Oil for our favorite summer recipes.
Mazola® Corn Oil is an all-purpose cooking oil that is a heart-healthy* choice for your family. Variety of uses include baking, grilling, sautéing, stir-frying, or mixing up a marinade.
We’ve been using it for years and we keep it stocked in our cabinet for easy access when cooking, baking, and grilling.
This tasty Grilled Eggplant Salad has no lettuce, which makes it the perfect salad if you too have bunnies that keep eating your lettuce.
To start I sliced up the eggplant and let it sit in a homemade marinade for 15-30 minutes.
I wanted to make the marinade fresh and simple so I kept the ingredients to Mazola® Corn Oil, lemon, honey, fresh herbs, salt, and pepper.
Mazola® Corn Oil creates marinades that make great-tasting food because it has a neutral taste that lets the flavor of your dish stand out.
Since I wanted to add a variety of textures, temperatures, and fresh flavors I chose to top the eggplant salad with whipped goat cheese (which melts on the warm eggplant), pesto, fresh tomatoes, and herbs from our garden.
This is such a tasty grilled Italian summer salad because you can use fresh veggies and herbs you grow in your garden!
Roger and I enjoyed feasting on this grilled salad on our back patio and we can’t wait to do more summer grilling as the days continue to get longer!
Grilled Eggplant Salad
This Grilled Eggplant Salad is marinated, grilled, and topped with whipped ricotta, pesto, quartered tomatoes, and fresh herbs.
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 10 minutes
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: Serves 4
Ingredients
Eggplant Marinade
- 1/2 Cup Mazola® Corn Oil
- 1 Lemon, juiced
- 1 Tablespoon Honey
- 1 Tablespoon Fresh Parsley, chopped
- 1 Tablespoon Fresh Basil, chopped
- 1/8 Teaspoon Salt
- 1/8 Teaspoon Black Pepper
- 1 Eggplant
Whipped Ricotta
- 3/4 Cup Ricotta
- 1 Tablespoon Mazola® Corn Oil
- 1 Tablespoon Honey
Toppings
- 4–6 Cocktail Tomatoes, quartered or halved
- Pesto, to taste
- Fresh Basil*(1), to taste
- Fresh Parsley, to taste
- Salt, to taste
- Pepper, to taste
Instructions
- First, clean and slice the eggplant into 1/2 inch sliced disks.
- In a small bowl whisk together the 1/2 cup Mazola® Corn Oil, 1 juiced lemon, 1 tablespoon honey, 1 tablespoon chopped parsley, 1 tablespoon chopped basil, 1/8 teaspoon salt, and 1/8 teaspoon black pepper.
- Place the eggplant slices in a baking dish and pour the marinade over all of the eggplant slices. Cover and refrigerate for 15-30 minutes.
- While the eggplant is marinating, place the 3/4 cup ricotta, 1 tablespoon Mazola Corn Oil, and 1 tablespoon honey in a food processor and blend until smooth. Set to the side.
- Once the eggplant has marinaded, place your cast iron grill pan over high heat.
- When the grill is hot turn the heat down to medium-medium/low and place the eggplant slices on the grill in a single layer. Cook for 3-5 minutes flipping the eggplant halfway through.
- The eggplant is done once they have charred grill marks on all sides. Repeat the grilling process until all of the eggplant slices are grilled.*(2)
- Place the marinated grilled eggplant on a serving dish, topped with quartered tomatoes, dollops of whipped ricotta and pesto, and sprinkled with fresh basil and fresh parsley. Add salt and pepper to taste.
- Serve and enjoy!
Notes
- I used both sweet basil and purple basil, but you can use whatever you have on hand.
- Cooking time will vary by the size and thickness of the eggplant.
I hope you enjoy your Grilled Eggplant Salad!
Looking for more recipes? You can find many more appetizer recipes by clicking here.
If you make this Grilled Eggplant Salad, be sure to share a picture and tag @DomesticallyBlissful on Instagram so that we can all see your delicious brunch and so that I can share your image on my stories!
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What is your favorite type of grilled salad?
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With love, Giusti
* To learn more about this claim, visit MAZOLA.com.
DISCLAIMER: Corn Oil is a cholesterol-free food that contains 14g of total fat per serving. See nutrition information on the product label or at mazola.com for fat and saturated fat content.
DISCLAIMER: *Very limited and preliminary scientific evidence suggests that eating about 1 tablespoon (16 grams) of Corn Oil daily may reduce the risk of heart disease due to the unsaturated fat content in Corn Oil. FDA concludes that there is little scientific evidence supporting this claim. To achieve this possible benefit, Corn Oil is to replace a similar amount of saturated fat and not increase the total number of calories you eat in a day. One serving of this product contains 14 grams of Corn Oil.
