{MAKE IT} Zucchini Bites

As soon as I saw this recipe by The Curious Country Cook on, you guessed it, pinterest, I knew I had to give it a shot. I should preface this post by mentioning that my kids have always been good at eating their veggies, but sometimes are a little reluctant on eating the non-traditional, but super good for you ones.

This recipe satisfied a couple different things for me:

1. Allowed me to buy a new silicone (I’ve been coveting this type of bakeware for a while now) muffin pan. During our move, my mini muffin pan got bent ~~by my husband who I’m sure did it on purpose in an effort to pare down my kitchen supplies~~, and I hadn’t replaced it yet, so many of the recipes I’ve been eyeing had to take back seat as I was lacking the needed tools.

2. Gave me an always needed super easy, healthy, and compact item to add to the kids lunches

3. It checked off another “need to try” recipe from my ever growing pinterest board!

4. And most importantly, they’re mini!! You know my love for little things, well, these are the perfect little thing! (I may or may not have inhaled 6 of them in succession after I made them!)

So, without further ado!

ZUCCHINI BITES

Prep time: 10 minutes

Cook time: 18 minutes

Ingredients

1 cups zucchini, grated
1 egg
1/4 small yellow onion, diced – I used 1/2 small yellow onion
1/4 cup cheese (cheddar or Parmesan work the best) – I used marble!
1/4 cup bread crumbs
Pepper
Seasoning to taste

Directions

Preheat oven to 400F. Spray a mini-muffin tin with non-stick spray, set aside.
Grate the zucchini and then place in a dish towel to squeeze out the excess water- like when using frozen spinach; if you skip this part, the middle of the zucchini tots will be really soggy while the outside gets crispy and no one wants that.
In a bowl combine, the egg, onion, cheese, bread crumbs, zucchini, pepper, and seasoning to taste (I used some Italian seasoning, and some smoked paprika… I put that sh*t on everything!).
Using a spoon or a cookie scoop, fill the muffin cups to the top. Bake for 15-18 minutes, or until the top is browned and set.

**NOTES** I grated my onion because I was lazy, but didn’t squeeze the extra water out so my bites turned out a little soggy in the middle. I think this was avoidable had I of done that extra step.

Seriously… Yum! I thought the amount of onion was going to be too much, but you couldn’t even tell it was in there, and my kids claim to hate onion! I’d like to try these with a mix of parm and cheddar next time as I think the cheddar sogged it up a bit.

Both my kids loved this recipe, I ate 6 before they had even cooled, and even hubby like them too! Big win in this house!

Enjoy!