🥗 STARTER
Baklazhanna Ikra (Odesa-Style Eggplant Caviar)
Roasted eggplant, pepper and tomato, peeled and chopped by hand with garlic, herbs, sunflower oil and a splash of vinegar, a cold zakuska spread on black bread.
Ukrainian · easy · serves 6
prep 20 min · cook 30 min · plus 1 h 30 min hands-off time
~115 cal · 2g protein · 13g carbs · 7g fat · 5g fiber · 7g sugars · 1g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Baklazhanna ikra, "eggplant caviar", is one of the best-loved zakusky, the cold starters of the Ukrainian table, and it is the summer pride of Odesa and the south, where eggplants grow well and families once made it in huge batches to put up in jars for winter. The name is a joke with a long history: a poor man's caviar, spread on bread in place of the real thing.
In the Odesa style the vegetables are roasted or charred until soft and smoky, peeled, and then chopped by hand rather than blended, so the ikra keeps some texture. Eggplant is the heart of it, with sweet pepper and ripe tomato, raw garlic, a handful of herbs, fragrant unrefined sunflower oil and a little vinegar. Other versions stew the vegetables slowly with onion and carrot into a thick, jammy spread.
It is served cold, after an hour or two in the fridge to let the flavours settle, with fresh dark bread, as part of a spread of starters or beside boiled potatoes.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally vegetarian, vegan and gluten-, dairy-, egg-, nut- and pork-free. No swaps needed.
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
🐖 Pork-Free
Dietary labels are a cooking guide, not allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish; we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, read the label on every product you use, and note that a kitchen can cross-contaminate in ways a recipe cannot control.
Ingredients
US
Metric
Serves 6
- 2 (about 700 g) eggplants
- 1 large red bell pepper
- 400 g ripe tomatoes
- 2 garlic cloves, crushed
- 1/2 small onion or red onion, very finely chopped, optional
- 3 tbsp unrefined sunflower oilHard to find? 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil - good, but without the toasty, seedy aroma of unrefined sunflower oil
- 1 tbsp white wine vinegar or 9% table vinegar
- 3 tbsp parsley or cilantro, finely chopped
- to taste salt
- to taste black pepper
Instructions
- 1Heat the oven to 220°C, on the grill setting if you have one. Halve the eggplants, pepper and tomatoes and lay them cut side down on a tray lined with baking paper.
- 2Roast for 25 to 30 minutes, until the skins are blistered and charred and the eggplant is completely soft. Tip the pepper into a bowl and cover it so it steams.✎ Chef’s noteCharring the skins over a gas flame or on a grill gives an even smokier ikra.
- 3When cool enough to handle, peel all the vegetables and remove the pepper seeds. Let the eggplant drain in a sieve for 10 minutes so the ikra is not watery.
- 4Chop the eggplant, pepper and tomato finely with a large knife on a board, until you have a coarse, spreadable mixture.
- 5Mix in the garlic, the onion if using, the herbs, sunflower oil and vinegar, and season well with salt and pepper.
- 6Chill for 1 to 2 hours, then serve cold with fresh dark bread.
Southern Ukrainian (Odesa) tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Poltava. This is chernozem country, the deep black soil belt, and the cooking follows what grows easily there. Varenyky are filled with cherries in summer and potato or curd cheese the rest of the year, salo is salted and kept for months, and garlic, dill and soured cream turn up so consistently that their absence would be noticed.
🗺️
Ukraine. The culture of Ukrainian borscht cooking was inscribed on UNESCO's list of heritage in need of urgent safeguarding on 1 July 2022, a listing made under wartime conditions. UNESCO's own note is that inscription does not make a tradition exclusive, so the honest framing is a recognised Ukrainian practice rather than sole ownership of the soup.
🌍
Europe. European cooking is built on the land and the seasons, wheat, butter, and cured pork in the north; olive oil, tomatoes, and seafood around the Mediterranean; preserved vegetables and hearty stews through long winters. Centuries of peasant tradition, guild craft, and royal courts refined techniques from French mother sauces to Italian fresh pasta and Central European baking. Regional identity runs remarkably deep, with a single dish often changing from one valley to the next.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from Ukraine
Varenyky (Potato Dumplings)Half-moon dumplings of tender dough filled with mashed potato and fried onion, boiled and tossed in butter, served with fried onions and sour cream.
BorschtThe famous beet soup, sweet-sour and garnet-red, ladled over beans and finished with dill and sour cream.
Chicken KyivA breaded chicken cutlet rolled around herb-garlic butter that bursts out golden when you cut in.
Browse all Ukraine recipes →
Good to know
You’ll need: Oven, Grill or barbecue.
Storing it: Best straight off the heat. Leftovers keep 2 to 3 days refrigerated and reheat well in a hot oven rather than the microwave.
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Cuisine
Diet
Frequently asked questions
What is Baklazhanna Ikra (Odesa-Style Eggplant Caviar)?
Roasted eggplant, pepper and tomato, peeled and chopped by hand with garlic, herbs, sunflower oil and a splash of vinegar, a cold zakuska spread on black bread.
Where does Baklazhanna Ikra (Odesa-Style Eggplant Caviar) come from?
Baklazhanna Ikra (Odesa-Style Eggplant Caviar) is a Ukrainian dish from Poltava, Ukraine.
Can Baklazhanna Ikra (Odesa-Style Eggplant Caviar) be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Baklazhanna Ikra (Odesa-Style Eggplant Caviar) recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions. Treat the substitutions as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Baklazhanna Ikra (Odesa-Style Eggplant Caviar) safe for people with food allergies?
Our dietary labels and substitutions are a cooking guide, not medical or allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we still count coconut as a tree nut to be cautious, although the FDA stopped listing it as one in 2025), fish, and shellfish, but we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, always read the label on every product you use, and remember a home or commercial kitchen can cross-contaminate ingredients in ways a recipe cannot control.
How long does Baklazhanna Ikra (Odesa-Style Eggplant Caviar) take to make?
About 2 h 20 min in all: 20 minutes prep and 30 minutes cooking, plus 1 h 30 min of hands-off waiting the method needs, serving 6.
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