Homemade Veggie Nuggets are made from a variety of wholesome vegetables which come together to create a recipe your kids will actually love! Serve with sriracha ketchup for a spicy kick!
Let’s talk for a minute about what makes you want to eat something.
Is it the smell of your favorite foods cooking? Maybe that’s onions, or pasta, or chocolate chip cookie bars (ummm, yeah).
Maybe you just know how it’s going to taste, like a spicy pasta sauce or your favorite enchiladas.
Maybe most important (especially to kids) is how your food looks. They say we eat with our eyes first, and it’s probably true. If something looks scary but tastes amazing (I’m looking at you, Indian food) it might be a struggle to try it.
Let’s welcome homemade veggie nuggets to our food love party. They’re packed FULL of vegetables but don’t look a bit like one (kid win number one).
Now, I almost didn’t share these with you because I actually think they’re kind of ugly. BUT. They taste so good that my kids asked for seconds, so the world needed to know.
If you want these to be just a tiny bit prettier, deep fry or shallow fry them in a layer of olive oil over medium heat until golden brown. I liked baking them because it was pretty hands off and saved time because there were so many of them.
One of the great things about making homemade veggie nuggets is you can cut (or roll) them into whatever shape you want. I used cut outs similar to these (<– affiliate link) to make simple circles as well as hearts and butterflies.
My kids were definitely dipping these in regular ketchup, but I chose to spice mine up with sriracha ketchup. It’s an easy mixture using pantry ingredients that adds a great extra layer of flavor.
This homemade veggie nuggets recipe can be customized! Here are a few ideas to get you started:
- Swap the golden beet for a red beet in order to get a great pink color
- Skip the extra breadcrumb coating for a less crunchy, lower carb nugget
- Use an egg replacer to make these vegan veggie nuggets
- Dip in any of your favorite sauces such as spicy bbq sauce, spicy honey mustard avocado dip, or spinach pesto
- Use these nuggets in place of the vegetables in my eggplant parmesan sandwich
If you make this recipe be sure to rate it, leave a comment, or tag #theliveinkitchen on Instagram!
- 3 medium carrots roughly chopped
- 1 small head broccoli roughly chopped and tough stems removed
- 1 parsnip peeled and roughly chopped
- 1 golden beet peeled and cut into about 8 sections
- 1 clove garlic
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
- 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
- 1/2 teaspoon coarse kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper
- 1 1/4 cup panko breadcrumbs plus more for coating the nuggets
- 1/3 cup ketchup
- 1 tablespoon sriracha
- 1/8 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper
- In the bowl of a food processor, combine carrot, broccoli, parsnip, beet, and garlic until thoroughly chopped, stopping to scrape down the sides as necessary. Add the eggs, seasonings, and breadcrumbs and continue to process until a thick paste forms.
- Spread the mixture out on a parchment lined baking sheet so it is about 1/4 inch thick. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate 30 minutes or up to overnight.
- Preheat the oven to 400ºF. Line a large baking sheet with parchment or a silicone baking mat. Place about 3/4 cup breadcrumbs in a shallow bowl.
- Use a cookie cutter or small biscuit cutter to cut the mixture into shapes. Gently toss each nugget in the extra breadcrumbs, pressing to adhere. Place the coated nuggets on the prepared baking sheet. Cut out the shapes closely to avoid too much waste. There will still be a lot of leftover veggie mixture. You can carefully reshape this and cut out more nuggets if you’d like, though they may not hold together as well and will likely need to be baked in batches.
- Bake the nuggets for 25 minutes, flipping once halfway through.
Serving size and nutrition information is difficult to calculate based on your cutter size and leftover veggie mixture after cutting out the nuggets. I have based the serving numbers on reshaping the dough and the nutrition facts on one nugget. Servings and nutrition facts may vary.
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