Air Fryer Eggplant with Miso Sauce

After publishing my spicy eggplant stir fry recipe, quite a few people asked if there was a way to prepare the eggplant with less oil. In that recipe, I shallow fry eggplant in 3/4 cup of oil, which softens the eggplant nicely, while preserving the lovely purple hue of the skin. Admittedly, I don’t cook food regularly with that much oil either.

That’s why I developed this air fryer eggplant recipe, which is more practical for everyday meals. It uses much less oil, and the eggplant has a nice soft texture once it’s cooked. You can prepare the eggplant two ways: slice them into thin planks or into chunks before air frying. In the first version of this recipe, I cut the eggplant into planks. Lately, I’ve been preferring the version with eggplant chunks because they’re so much easier to eat. The recipe below includes directions for cooking the eggplant both ways.

COOKING NOTES FOR AIR FRYER EGGPLANT

USING ASIAN EGGPLANT

In general, I like cooking with the long and thin variety of purple eggplant, which can be labeled as Asian, Chinese, or Japanese eggplant in stores or farmers markets. This variety of eggplant has smaller seeds and typically isn’t bitter. If you can find Asian eggplant, I highly recommend using it for this recipe. Otherwise, feel free to substitute with whatever eggplant you can get your hands on. When using other varieties of eggplant, you can slice them into thin planks or 1 to 1 ½-inch chunks.

SAUCE INGREDIENTS

The sauce that I made to pair with the eggplant is lightly sweet but packed with umami flavor. The ingredients list is pretty straightforward. However, I wanted to focus on two ingredients that may be slightly more difficult to find: miso and gochugaru.

Miso

When developing the recipe, I used white miso (see photograph above), which is a sweeter and less fermented variety of miso. If you can only find red miso or some other variety of miso, add 2 teaspoons of the miso to the sauce first. Taste the sauce and add more (1 teaspoon at a time) if you think the sauce isn’t flavorful enough.

Where to find miso: You can generally find miso in Asian grocery stores or the refrigerated foods aisles near other fermented foods. I generally don’t use shelf-stable miso, but they should also work with this recipe.

Gochugaru

I love using gochugaru, Korean pepper flakes, in my cooking because it brightens up the flavor of the dish without adding too much spice. If gochugaru is difficult to find, you can use 2 teaspoons of paprika instead. The flavor profile will be a little different, but it’ll definitely enhance the flavor of the sauce.

Where to find gochugaru: You can find gochugaru in Korean grocery stores, the Asian food aisles of general grocery stores, or on Amazon (these are my favorite brands: Mother-in-Law’s and Wang Korea (affiliate links).  I like storing gochugaru in the refrigerator to preserve their vibrant color and to prevent them from molding (a bag molded in my pantry recently!).

CAN I MAKE THIS RECIPE WITHOUT AN AIR FRYER?

You can bake the eggplant on lined baking sheets at 400ºF (205ºC). The eggplant will take twice as long to cook.

WHAT TO SERVE WITH AIR FRYER EGGPLANT

Carbs

• Something simple: jasmine rice, short-grain brown rice, or quinoa
• Fried rice: egg fried rice or pineapple fried rice

Tofu Dishes

• teriyaki tofu
• salt and pepper tofu

5 from 3 votes

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Servings: 4

Author: Lisa Lin

Air Fryer Eggplant with Miso Sauce

This air fryer eggplant deserves a spot in your weeknight dinner rotation! The recipe features tender eggplant topped with a lightly sweet miso sauce that is packed with umami flavor. I like using Asian eggplant (sometimes called Chinese or Japanese eggplant) for this recipe because they have small seeds and generally aren’t bitter bitter. Feel free to use whatever eggplant you can find.

When developing this recipe, I used a Cosori air fryer (the one with a large pull-out basket). There are many varieties of air fryers on the market, each with slightly different heating mechanisms. Use the cooking times below as a guideline–you may need to increase or decrease the cooking times by a minute or two.

You’ll see in the directions below that I’ve included directions on how to prepare the eggplant in planks and chunks. In my original 2023 recipe, I prepared the eggplant in planks. Recently, I’ve been cutting the eggplant into chunks because they’re easier to eat.

Prep Time15 minutes mins

Cook Time30 minutes mins

Ingredients

Miso Sauce

• 1/2 cup (118mL) water
• 1/4 teaspoon cornstarch
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon gochugaru (Korean pepper flakes), (see note 1)
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 tablespoons minced garlic
• 1 1/2 tablespoons white miso, (see note 2)

Eggplant

• 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 pounds (567g to 680g) Chinese or Japanese eggplant
• 3 to 4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• sea salt or kosher salt
• toasted sesame seeds, for garnish
• sliced scallions or chives, for garnish

Equipment

• air fryer

Instructions

Make Sauce

• Stir the water, cornstarch, soy sauce, gochugaru, and sugar in a bowl and set aside.
• In a saucepan over medium heat, add 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Add the minced garlic and cook for 30 seconds to a minute, stirring frequently. Give the soy sauce mixture a quick stir again, in case any cornstarch settles to the bottom. Carefully pour the liquid into the saucepan. Once the liquid reaches a boil, reduce the heat to medium-low and let it simmer for another 2 minutes to thicken slightly.
  
• Turn off the heat and add the miso to the saucepan and whisk to incorporate. The miso should break down pretty easily in the warmed sauce. Set the sauce aside.

Prepare Eggplant

• Rinse the eggplant and pat dry. Peel off the petals from the top of the eggplant and slice off the remainder of the stem.
  

For Eggplant Planks

• Slice the eggplant lengthwise into 1/4 to 1/2-inch thick planks. The two slices on the outside of each eggplant will have the most skin. I suggest using the tip of your knife to make several diagonal cuts to pierce the skin. This will help make the skin easier to eat later. If you are working with very long eggplants (anything over 8 inches long), I’d recommend slicing the eggplant in half crosswise so they can fit into the air fryer.
  
• Pour 3 tablespoons of olive oil into a small bowl. Brush both sides of each slice of eggplant with the olive oil. If you’re running out of olive oil, pour another tablespoon of oil into the small bowl. Sprinkle tiny pinches of salt over the eggplant slices.
  
• Preheat the air fryer to 400ºF (205ºC). Working in batches, add the eggplant slices to the basket of your air fryer in a single layer. Try not to overlap the eggplant slices. Cook for 4 minutes. Flip the eggplant over and cook for another 3 to 4 minutes, until the eggplant looks softened and slightly browned. Transfer the cooked eggplant to a serving plate and continue air frying the remaining eggplant.
  
• Once all the eggplant is cooked, use a spoon to spread miso sauce over all the eggplant slices. Garnish with sesame seeds and scallions.
  

Eggplant Chunks

• Slice a 1 to 1 ½-inch piece of eggplant diagonally. Rotate the eggplant 90 degrees, and slice the eggplant on the diagonal again, but slicing in the opposite direction (see photos below). The idea is to cut the eggplant into chunks that are almost triangular in shape.
  
• In a medium bowl, toss the eggplant chunks with 3 tablespoons of olive oil and a small pinch of salt.
• Preheat the air fryer to 400ºF (205ºC). Working in batches, cook the eggplant in the air fryer for 6 to 7 minutes. Make sure the eggplant is arranged in a single layer and none of the chunks are overlapping. You don’t need to flip the eggplant pieces midway through cooking. Transfer the cooked eggplant to a serving plate and continue air frying the remaining eggplant.
  
• Once cooked, toss the cooked eggplant with about 3/4 of the miso sauce. Taste and add more sauce if you like. Garnish with toasted sesame seeds and scallions.
• Serve the eggplant with jasmine rice or egg fried rice. You’ll likely have leftover miso sauce. Drizzle it over the rice! For some protein on the side, I like serving the eggplant with a fried egg or teriyaki tofu.

Notes

1. Substituting Gochugaru: If gochugaru is difficult to find, you can use 2 teaspoons of paprika instead. The flavor profile will be a little different, but it’ll definitely enhance the flavor of the sauce.
2. White Miso Alternatives: If you can only find red miso or some other variety of miso, I recommend tasting the miso first. If the paste has a pretty strong funky fermented flavor, add 1 tablespoon of the miso to the sauce first. Then, taste the sauce and add more if needed.
3. Make Ahead Tips: You can air fry the eggplant and prepare the sauce a few days ahead. Refrigerate the cooked eggplant and sauce separately. Heat the eggplant in a skillet and the sauce in a saucepan for several minutes, until heated through.
4. Variation Using Fuyu Butter: Instead of miso sauce, you can slather some of my fuyu butter on the air-fried eggplant. Fuyu is Chinese fermented bean curd. 

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Nutrition

Serving: 4slices of eggplant | Calories: 192kcal | Carbohydrates: 15.2g | Protein: 3g | Fat: 14.9g | Saturated Fat: 2.1g | Sodium: 284mg | Fiber: 5.4g | Sugar: 7.5g

Cuisine: Asian

Category: Side Dish, Vegan

This recipe was originally published in 2023 and updated in July 2026. I added an alternate version of preparing the eggplant and simplified the directions for preparing the sauce.