These airfried eggplant “fries” are a wonderful vegan side dish or snack! They’re coated with a mix of sesame seeds, poppy seeds, nutritional yeast and garlic and are super crispy.
Ever since I got an aifryer at the end of last year, I have been wanting to make EVERYTHING in the aifryer! To be fair, my Ninja Foodi can do a lot more. It can roast, grill, sear AND aifry. Oh, and it can also steam, pressure-cook and slow cook food. It’s literally so much fun to use it and I am absolutely in love with it. By the way, I am not advertising for the company, I just really love their product so very much!
So anyways, since food gets so crispy in the airfryer without any or much added fat, I wanted to try making fries but not from potato. Eggplant is something that I love eating immensely and I often make crispy pieces in the airfryer. Just chop up an eggplant, spray it with olive oil and airfry it for a while. After a while, I started adding things. First I tried dipping it in egg and spices (which tastes good!), then I tried coating it in nutritional yeast (also tastes good!). But I wanted that EXTRA crunch. What I didn’t want was carbs from flour or breadcrumbs though.
So I decided to use seeds instead! And while I was experimenting with the coating, I remembered the yummy flavors of the “Everything” seasoning. It used to be my favorite bagel flavor to get! Everything seasoning is basically a mix of sesame seeds (I think white and black), poppy seeds, salt, garlic and onion. It tastes wonderful on lots of other dishes too, like these eggplant “fries”. I know you get can a seasoning mix in the US but since I live in Germany, I had to just wing it.
So first I mixed together sesame seeds, poppy seeds, garlic powder, nutritional yeast, salt and a garlic and herbs spice mixture. Then I still needed something to stick the coating to the eggplant “fries” with and since I wanted this recipe to be vegan, I used almond milk. I have actually been doing that a lot lately and it works really well! By airfrying the fries with minimal use of oil, you get super crispy eggplant “fries”! You have to aifry them in batches though since there should be no or minimal overlapping.
I like to eat these on the side of a protein dish or honestly just like that as a snack. You can either dip them into a sauce (I used ketchup as you can probably see) or just eat them on their own. So good!
Will you make these as a side dish soon? Or how about Vegan “Cheesy” Broccoli Bake?
“Everything” Seasoned Eggplant Fries
Description
These airfried eggplant "fries" are a wonderful vegan side dish or snack! They're coated with a mix of sesame seeds, poppy seeds, nutritional yeast and garlic and are super crispy.
Ingredients
Instructions
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Cut the ends of the eggplant and cut into three pieces. Then cut those pieces into thick slices and those into sticks. They should end up in the size and shape of thick potato fries.
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In a bowl, mix together almond milk and salt.
In another bowl, mix together sesame seeds, poppy seeds, smoked chipotle powder, garlic 'n herb spice mixture, salt, garlic powder and nutritional yeast.
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Dip each eggplant piece quickly into the almond milk and then into the coating. Put into the airfryer basket but make sure they don't overlap. Spray with olive oil.
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Airfry at 200°C (392°F) for 10 minutes. You will probably need to do this in four batches. Enjoy!
Note
I use this garlic n herb seasoning. It contains organic garlic, organic onion, organic black pepper, organic carrot, organic orange peel, organic parsley, organic fennel seed, organic mustard, organic coriander, organic cumin, organic oregano, organic thyme, organic celery seed, organic rosemary, organic basil, organic marjoram, organic bay leaf, organic lemon essential oil.
