Black Bean Veggie Nuggets

I am constantly trying to make my bf give up meat and what is a better way than cooking some meat-like, fast food looking, healthy meals. He loved this recipe! And I mean LOVED! It resembles the traditional Romanian meat nuggets recipe which honestly is delicious but really unhealthy. I used a very small amount of oil, gluten free flour and black beans which are a lot better than the white ones because they contain more fibers and have an impressive amount of antioxidants.

By the way, these nuggets can be easily transformed in burger patties.

I really hope you’ll like this recipe. It is simple and delicious!

Ingredients for about 16 nuggets/ 4 servings:

-         -  300g black beans (preferably soaked for at least 4 hours or overnight)

-         -  2 medium onions, peeled, diced

-        -  3 tbsp condiment mix (recipe below, you can skip this and add other condiment mix you consider suitable)

-        -   3 tbsp dry yeast flakes

-        -  sea salt, to taste

-       -    ½ tsp ground pepper

-      -     ½ cup chopped dill

-     -      ½ cup chickpea flour

-      -     2 tbsp sunflower oil (for spraying the frying pan, you may be using less)

Directions:

Boil the beans for 40 minutes, until they’re tender and change their boiling water at least 2 times.

Beans are very hard to digest, that is why it is recommended to soak them overnight before cooking and also to change frequently the water they boil in; doing so the hard digestible enzymes will be transferred in the water and we will not experience any abdominal discomfort.

Place in the beans in the food processor along with the condiment mix, dry yeast flakes, sea salt, pepper and dill.

Blend well together until you get a dough like consistency.

Add the mixture in a large bowl and mix with the diced onions.

Heat a large skillet. Spray it with some oil (we don’t want to use a large amount of oil).

Mold the dough into a nugget type shape.

Dip each nugget in the chickpea flour.

Fry at medium high heat. Flip them when necessary so they’re fried evenly.

Serve with any sauce you like and some salad. I used tomato and red peppers sauce.

Enjoy!

Condiment Mix

I really like this condiment mix. It is not yet finsihed because I have to add dried carrots too. You can use it in mostly everything and it can be used instead of salt because I already added 3 tbsp sea salt per jar.

Ingredients for 2 jars:

- 1 celery root

- 10 parsley roots

- a big bunch of celery leaves

- 2 bunches parsley

- 10 carrots

- 3 tbsp sea salt/ per jar

Directions:

Grate the carrots, celery roots and parsley roots. 

Put them and the chopped parsley and celery leaves on some large plates and let them dry in the sun ( you can also use a dehydrator if you have one).

When they are dried, put them in your food processor and grind them.

Mix with salt and put in jars.