Turkish style Baba Ganoush Without Tahini is a perfect mezze or appetizer with its smoky flavor and refreshing ingredients. Tangy and slightly garlicky, this chunky eggplant dip rocks at any occasion.
In Turkish cuisine, we make baba ganoush without tahini. It is as tasty as our hummus without tahini. If you love roasted eggplants, you should check out our karni yarik recipe, eggplant kebab recipe and roasted eggplant salad recipe.
Babaganoush is one of the best Turkish dishes you can serve at parties. The combination of roasted red and green peppers, eggplants, raw garlic and herbs are tossed with lemon juice and olive oil to make a perfect vegan lunch that is not heavy.
Who craves for a comforting meal when it is the hottest time of the year? We enjoy this babaganoush without tahini as a meal when we don’t feel like eating anything but something refreshing during summer.
If you like light meals like this, you might want to see our mucver fritters, bean salad piyaz, kisir bulgur salad and wheat salad too.
About This Recipe
This baba ganoush has a few differences from its world-wide known versions.
For one thing, we don’t use tahini. Not because we don't love it. Tahini is one of the ingredients we use a lot in Turkish cuisine. But not in this recipe. This is how baba ganoush is traditionally made. On the other hand, I'm hooked by David Lebovitz's recipe with tahini and will try it asap.
Another thing is that we don’t mash the ingredients until smooth, we mash it roughly with a fork. We have it with breads like Turkish flat bread, lavash bread, tortilla no lard, pide bread, crackers or as a side dish with nothing alongside.
In this updated post though, I left it chunky to see and feel the veggies better. It’s totally up to you to make it smooth or chunky.
I think it’s quite important to make this super easy dip in summer because summer eggplants taste way better than winter eggplants. It is one of my favorite veggies but I barely buy it in winter as I find it so tasteless.
Ingredients
Classic homemade baba ganoush recipe in my hometown must have the following ingredients:
- roasted eggplants
- roasted peppers
- parsley
- garlic
- a generous amount of lemon
- good quality olive oil, again with a generous amount
How To Make It
We roast the vegetables in oven, but you can roast them over stove as well. We just find the latter more tiresome. Oven method is a lot easier. As we do when making Turkish imam bayildi, just insert fork or knife on the vegetables randomly and roast in oven for about an hour. You need to take the peppers earlier, after about 30 minutes as they cook faster.
We don't roast garlic because it enriches the flavors in this recipe better when raw.
Either chop the roasted vegetables or mash them roughly with a fork and combine them with the rest of the ingredients.
Be generous when adding lemon juice and olive oil. These two can make any dip or salad taste better. And when making a baba ganoush recipe withput tahini, these are a must.
Love roasted vegetables? Go check out our Oven-Roasted Veggie Kabobs too!
Tips
- You can cook the veggies on the grill, on the stove or in the oven. If you use the grill, I recommend that you leave some pieces of their charred skin to have extra smoky flavor.
- We don’t use tahini in this version to get the Mediterranean flavors stand out more. If you want it as smooth as hummus dip , a little tahini could be a good touch.
- I don’t use any spices in this recipe because I don’t want to lose the smoky flavor.
- What to serve with this eggplant dip without tahini depends on your taste. To enjoy it on an appetizing snack board, we serve it with pita bread slices, lettuce leaves and lots of summer products.
- You can freeze the leftovers and store it up to 3 months. Let it sit in a strainer at room temperature to thaw it. Drain the water well before serving. However, I wouldn’t recommend this as I don’t like the taste much after it’s thawed. Not even close to the freshly made one.
More Dip Recipes
More Eggplant Recipes
As always: If you make this recipe, let us know what you think by rating it and leaving a comment below. And post a pic on Instagram too—tag @give_recipe so we can see!
Sign up for the FREE GiveRecipe Newsletter to get the new recipes into your inbox! And stay in touch with us on Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube and Instagram for all the latest updates.
📖 Recipe
Baba Ganoush Without Tahini
Tangy and garlicky baba ghanoush with roasted red bell pepper.
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 1 hour
- Total Time: 1 hour 10 minutes
- Yield: 4 1x
- Category: Meze
- Method: Roasting
- Cuisine: Turkish
- Diet: Vegan
Ingredients
- 4 eggplants (about 2 pounds)
- 2 red bell peppers
- 3 green peppers
- 3 cloves garlic, finely minced
- 3 tablespoons chopped parsley
- ¼ cup lemon juice
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375F (190C).
- Prick the eggplants randomly in a few places using a fork.
- Place the peppers and eggplants in an oven tray and roast them for about an hour so that the eggplants are perfectly tender. Take out the peppers after about 30 min as they are done faster.
- When the eggplants get tender enough, take them out. The duration of roasting might differ depending on the type of eggplant you are using. So check yours after 40 minutes using a knife or fork. If a knife can easily be inserted, it’s soft enough and ready to be removed from oven.
- Peel the peppers and eggplants but don’t try to remove their skin completely. Just do it roughly and don’t worry about the skin left on them. It gives a nice smokey flavor to your dip.
- Mash the peeled eggplants and peppers with a fork. Combine them with chopped parsley, minced garlic, salt and lemon juice.
- Transfer into bowls and drizzle olive oil over it. Optionally, top with cherry tomatoes and olives.
- Serve immediately.
- Eat it on the same day as it contains raw garlic.
Nutrition
- Serving Size:
- Calories: 191
- Sugar: 20.3 g
- Sodium: 991.3 mg
- Fat: 8.9 g
- Carbohydrates: 28.2 g
- Protein: 3.8 g
- Cholesterol: 0 mg
Keywords: eggplant dip, no tahini baba ganoush, turkish baba ganoush recipe
Niki says
My mouth is singing! This was outstandingly good. Made a quarter portion of this as l was concerned by your comment about raw garlic needing to be eaten within a day and didn't want to risk it going to waste. Rookie mistake! Not ashamed to say my house mate and l have just eaten the whole batch, with pita bread and corn chips but mostly just with a teaspoon. It really was that good. I love tahini but, we eat a lot of the hummus my house mate makes so l thought without tahini would be a nice contrast. The only thing l would change is to char the eggplant skin a little more and follow your suggestion of leaving some in for the smokey flavour. The few pieces that l had left in really did add to the flavour. Thanks so much for sharing this recipe. It's definitely a keeper.
★★★★★
Zerrin & Yusuf says
Hi Niki,
We are so happy to hear that you liked this version of baba ganoush as much as we do. Pita bread and corn chips go great with it. Charring the eggplants a little more sounds like a good idea to have a more smoky flavor.
Thank you so much for this lovely review and 5 star rating 🙂
Patu says
Not made it will do sounds amazing
★★★★★
Teresa Rawson says
This is one of the best things I’ve ever made, certainly the best thing found on Pinterest! Thank you!
★★★★★
Yusuf says
Hi Teresa!
So happy to hear that you loved our baba ganoush recipe! It is light yet packed with flavors, right?
Pamela says
It looks like you have Pistachio nuts on the dip pictured? Is that right? - There's nothing suggesting that. Mind you they would suit.
Yusuf says
Hi Pamela! We love the flavors of pistachios and roasted eggplants together. Can you please explain what you mean?
Ginger says
What kind of green peppers? Green bell pepper or a spicy green pepper like serrano or jalapeno?
Yusuf says
Hi Ginger! It doesn't really matter. We mostly use sweet green peppers, which are very common in Turkey. You can use bell peppers or if you like the final result spicy and hot, use jalapeno.
April says
Love all the flavors in it. YUM!
★★★★★
Dee says
Thank you so much for sharing this recipe!
It's so light and refreshing. I use it as a salad and it's just so flavorsome!
★★★★★
Adina says
Amazing pictures! I make the typical Romanian aubergine spread every summer, I should add the peppers to it the next time, it looks so good.!
Zerrin says
Thank you Adina! I'd love to make the dip with or without peppers as much as I can in summer.
Sarah says
I'm wondering what the measurement would be for roasted, puréed eggplant? 3 cups?? I always roast and freeze my summer eggplant to use later in the year. Thanks for your help with this!
Zerrin says
Hi Sarah, it makes 3-4 cups, right. I freeze summer eggplants too. It's great to find some summer flavors in your freezer during winter, isn't it?
Michele says
I live in Costa Rica and make eggplants just keep giving! Can you tell me how you freeze your eggplants?
Thanks
Zerrin says
Hi Michele! I roast them either on the grill or in the oven, let them cool completely and freeze in freezer bags.