Do you need to salt aubergine before cooking it?

The instruction to salt aubergine sits in old recipe books like a ritual: slice, salt, weight, wait, rinse, pat dry. Plenty of cooks still do it out of habit. It is worth knowing why it started, because that tells you when to bother.

Where the habit came from

The original reason was bitterness. Wikipedia's aubergine entry notes that raw aubergine can taste bitter and astringent, and that rinsing, draining and salting slices before cooking may take the bitterness away. For older varieties, and for big, overripe fruit with lots of seeds, that made sense.

Why it matters less now

Aubergines have been bred to be milder. A Tasting Table piece quoting chef Michael Costa makes the point that newer aubergines are milder and less bitter, and that whether he would salt depends on the aubergine and the result you want. That matches what we find in the kitchen: a firm, glossy, fresh aubergine rarely tastes bitter however you cook it.

Where bitterness can still turn up is in aubergines that are large, old, soft or full of dark seeds. If you cut one open and the seeds are brown and plentiful, salting is a reasonable insurance policy.

What salting still does: texture

Salt draws water out of the slices. That collapses the spongy structure a little, so the flesh cooks to a dense, creamy texture and browns more easily instead of steaming. The same Tasting Table piece describes salting as helping frying, roasting and grilling produce a browned outside and a creamy inside.

Whether salting reduces how much oil the aubergine soaks up is genuinely disputed among cooks, so we do not count on it. If oily aubergine is the worry, the technique matters more than the salt; our page on aubergine that isn't oily or spongy goes through it.

When we salt

• Frying slices for parmigiana, or aubergine fritters, where a creamy, dense slice that browns well is the whole point.
• Grilling thick slices, where a little less water means better marks and less steaming.
• Big, seedy or tired-looking aubergines, as bitterness insurance.

How: slice, sprinkle lightly with salt on both sides, lay in a colander, and leave until beads of moisture appear and the slices look slightly darker and floppy. Pat dry well with a clean tea towel. If you rinse, dry them very thoroughly, or they will spit in the oil. Season the finished dish lightly, since some salt stays behind.

When we skip it

• Roasting cubes in a hot oven with plenty of oil. They brown and go creamy on their own.
• Stews and sauces, such as caponata or a tomato and aubergine pasta sauce, where the aubergine simmers anyway.
• Whole aubergines charred over a flame or under the grill for a smoky dip.
• Small, slim varieties, such as long violet Italian or Asian types, which are usually sweet and tender.
• Weeknights, when the extra step is the difference between cooking and ordering.

A quick test

Not sure? Cut a thin slice from the middle, salt it lightly and fry it in a little oil until soft. Taste. If it is sweet, cook the rest without salting. If it is bitter, salt the rest. It takes less time than reading about it.