Makdous (Stuffed Pickled Baby Eggplants)
Baby eggplants boiled until tender, pressed dry, then stuffed with crushed walnuts, garlic and red pepper and cured for weeks under olive oil until tangy, nutty and deeply savoury. A classic Lebanese mezze and pantry staple.
Servings
Ingredients
Nutrition
Per serving
Steps
Prepare the eggplants
Wash the baby eggplants and trim the stems, leaving a small bit of the green cap on each. With a small sharp knife, cut a deep lengthwise slit down the middle of each eggplant, stopping about 1 cm from each end so the eggplant stays in one piece and can hold the stuffing like a pocket.
- 1 kg baby eggplants
✅ Done when: every eggplant has a deep central pocket but is still whole and intact
Boil until just tender
Bring the water and salt to a boil in a large pot. Add the eggplants and simmer for 6–8 minutes, until a knife slides into the flesh easily but they still hold their shape; do not overcook or they will fall apart later. Drain well in a colander.
- 1 kg boiled eggplants (from step 1)
- 3 litres water
- 2 tbsp salt
✅ Done when: a knife tip meets gentle resistance, not raw crunch, and the skins are glossy and slightly wrinkled
Press out the water
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Mix the filling
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Stuff the eggplants
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Pack into the jar
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Cure and store
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Prepare the eggplants
Wash the baby eggplants and trim the stems, leaving a small bit of the green cap on each. With a small sharp knife, cut a deep lengthwise slit down the middle of each eggplant, stopping about 1 cm from each end so the eggplant stays in one piece and can hold the stuffing like a pocket.
- 1 kg baby eggplants
✅ Done when: every eggplant has a deep central pocket but is still whole and intact
Boil until just tender
Bring the water and salt to a boil in a large pot. Add the eggplants and simmer for 6–8 minutes, until a knife slides into the flesh easily but they still hold their shape; do not overcook or they will fall apart later. Drain well in a colander.
- 1 kg boiled eggplants (from step 1)
- 3 litres water
- 2 tbsp salt
✅ Done when: a knife tip meets gentle resistance, not raw crunch, and the skins are glossy and slightly wrinkled
Press out the water
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Mix the filling
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Stuff the eggplants
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Pack into the jar
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Cure and store
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The Story Behind the Dish
Makdous belongs to the same family of eggplant preserves found across the Levant, born from the need to make the short summer eggplant season last through the winter. Families would prepare large batches at once, boiling and pressing basket after basket of small eggplants before packing them with walnuts and chili and sealing them under olive oil in big jars.
In Lebanon it is one of the pillars of the mezze table alongside labneh and olives, usually made at home in late summer and eaten through autumn and winter once properly cured.
⭐ Why It's Famous
It turns a humble vegetable into something complex and savoury through nothing more than salt, oil and patience, and it keeps for months without refrigeration once properly cured.
💡 Fun Fact
The pressing step, weighing the boiled eggplants down to force out their water, is considered the most important and most easily skipped step; cooks say it is the difference between makdous that lasts all winter and makdous that spoils in a week.
Levant / Lebanon
33.85°N, 35.86°E
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