Sicilian Aubergine Salad

Sicilian Aubergine Salad is a great way to prepare aubergines. If you like them but you want a fresh and light dish, go for this aubergine salad, rather than cooking the aubergines in the oven.

As you probably know the aubergines absorb in fact a lot of oil as they are like sponges so they can be terribly tasty but also a bit heavy sometimes. Well not in this recipe!

This is one of the recipes of my childhood.

Both my mum and dad used to work.

Saturday was big shopping day and Sunday they started cooking early in the morning for the entire week coming.

Like that there were lot of things ready for the lunches of the first days of the week.

When dad and us kids would come home for lunch break during the week, everything just needed to be warmed up.

And the food prepared was often roast-beef, roasted peppers,  peperonata, crougettes in the pan and of course this Sicilian aubergine salad!

I loved every single one of these dishes! And I adored when there was only a little bit left from each container and my mum decided that that evening we would have all of them on the table with cheese and lettuce salad.

I remember coping my big brother and making myself a huge sandwich filled with a bit of everything on the table .

My mouth was never big enough for a full bite of that panino but it was delicious!

Now going back to the aubergine salad, this is a recipe from my father, who learned it from his mum, my Sicilian granny!

There are a few variations of this recipe, one of the most common is with a few leaves of mint (in addition to my ingredients below) but I prefer without.

The Sicilian aubergine salad works great both as starter and side dish.

Ingredients for the Sicilian Aubergine Salad

The amount of the ingredients for this recipe doesn’t need to be precise. Once you have decided how many aubergines you want to use, the dressing depends on your taste.

• 2 or 3 aubergine
• White wine vinegar
• Oregano
• Salt
• Olive oil
• A clove of garlic

How to Prepare the Sicilian Aubergine Salad

Cut the aubergine in big stripes or big chunks.

Bring some water to boil.

Place the aubergines in the boiling water and let them cook until soft. You will notice that their skin will turn into a brown color. In the picture below, they are almost ready, but not ready yet!

Drain them and let them cool.

Squeeze the water out from the aubergines with your hands like our little helper Datti is doing in the photo:

Dress the aubergine with vinegar, finely chopped garlic, extra virgin olive oil and oregano.

You can eat it like that or place it in the fridge for an even more refreshing summer salad!