How to make superfood veggie cakes
Superfood veggie cakes are a tasty way to get more vegetables into your diet. They are baked, not fried, and full of nutrient dense ingredients.
Tuck these delicious veggie cakes into lunch boxes for a healthy midday meal and avoid the afternoon slump. Perfect for breakfast with an egg on top to get veggies for breakfast too!
For another tasty way to get some vegetables into you dinner routine, try these Sweet Potato Veggie Cakes or Green Vegetable Cakes. They are easy, crispy and oh so good.
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Superfood veggie cakes
I’m always looking for ways to get more vegetables into my diet. Sure, I can steam some broccoli or roast some sweet potatoes, but I like a bit of variety.
Also, these are a tasty way to get a generous helping of veggies into my belly and the crunch on the outside gives it great texture to keep things interesting. Because that’s really the problem with vegetables sometimes, isn’t it? We get bored with them.
There are only so many ways you can eat them, there are only so many options available during certain times of the year, so we need to get creative.
I put together a list of 25 easy vegetarian recipes that are perfect for lunch and dinner to help us all find different ways to get vegetables into our meals. And that’s a veggie lover talking, so I can only imagine how people feel who aren’t big fans of eating their vegetables.
If you are new to the veggie cake game, watch the video at the top of this post to see how I make them. I’ve also written a post How to Make Veggie Cakes with instructions and helpful tips for making your own vegetable cakes from scratch.
Baked vegetable cakes
To keep these on the healthy side, they are baked instead of fried. The veggie cakes are coated in a very light dusting of breadcrumb for a little crunch, but that is optional.
If you want to omit that and bake them as is, by all means, go ahead. Sometimes vegetables have to be concealed in order to be eaten, so I made them look like something we might get out to encourage picky eaters.
If you are gluten-free, coat them in a bit of almond flour instead of breadcrumb and then bake. They will be nutty and delicious from the almond flour.
What is a “superfood”?
A superfood is a nutrient dense food that delivers a lot of bang for the buck. A few weeks ago, I posted a superfood salad with sweet potatoes and pomegranate. I talked a bit about superfoods in that post, if you want to learn more.
To keep it brief, dark leafy greens and quinoa are both superfoods. That is the base of this vegetable cake.
I added a bit of shredded carrot and onions to the veggie patty to give it some sweetness and to amp up the flavor, because as we said earlier, sometimes people need a bit of a nudge to eat their greens.
Baked superfood veggie cakes
The easiest way to keep the shape of your superfood vegetable cakes is to use a measuring cup. When you pack the measuring cup, make sure you press it down to really pack it in there tightly. When you tap it out into your hand, or on the counter, it will hold it’s shape if it is pressed into the cup.
If it falls apart a little when you take it out of the cup, gently push it back into shape and go from there.
As long as you press it down really well when it’s in the measuring cup, you won’t have this problem. I’m telling you this as a cautionary tale. It happened to me on my very first veggie patty, so I pressed harder on the next one and voila! No more issues.
If these were fried, I could use a large scoop to portion out the mixture to drop into the pan. That is the scoop size that I use for fried veggie cakes, cupcakes, muffins, etc. It is a perfect size for almost everything.
Superfood Vegetable Cake Essentials
- quinoa – a main ingredient in this vegetable cake, this is the exact quinoa used for this recipe. It is organic and if you cook a lot of quinoa, it’s worth getting a larger bag.
- measuring cups – you’ll use these to form the superfood vegetable cakes and so much more. Measuring cups are a kitchen necessity.
- sheet pans – these commercial sheet pans are the way to go, they will not warp in a hot oven and they hold up to lots of use.
- box grater – no need to lug out the food processor, just a quick grate on this guy and you’re in business
Pin it to your veggie board:
Still looking for more? You can find additional recipes in my veggie cake e-book!
Like this recipe? Please share!
Superfood Veggie Cakes
Ingredients
- 2 tsp olive oil
- 1 onion small, diced
- 1 clove garlic minced
- 2 tsp salt kosher
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 8 oz baby kale spinach and chard (approx 6 cups)
- 1 carrot shredded
- 1 1/2 cups quinoa cooked
- 2 eggs
- 1/4 cup breadcrumb optional or almond flour
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- In a medium pan, heat olive oil over medium heat and cook onion until translucent, about 6 minutes. Add garlic, salt and pepper. Cook an additional 2 minutes.
- Add baby kale, chard and/or spinach mixture. Cook a few minutes until kale mixture is wilted down.
- Remove from heat and squeeze out water from greens.
- In a medium bowl, beat eggs, then add quinoa and carrots.
- Add kale mixture, breaking up to mix thoroughly with quinoa.
- Put breadcrumb in a shallow bowl or plate.
- Using a 1/2 cup measure, pack the cup with the quinoa mixture to form, then tap out and carefully coat in breadcrumbs.
- Bake for 20 minutes. Remove and cool slightly before eating.
I am always looking for different and creative to prepare vegetables. This way is so perfect AND tasty. Thank you Pook’s Pantry for this delicious recipe.
Thank you, Leighann!
Healthy is good but also delicious is fantastic!
Thank you, Linda! I agree!
Does this taste similar to the garden lites super food veggie cakes? They are my absolute favorite but they are so expensive for only 6 tiny little cakes.
I’ve been looking for a copy cat recipe. Has anyone here had the garden lites version and can compare the two?
Hi Kat, I’ve never had the garden delites veggie cakes. To be honest, I’ve always made my own and didn’t know until a few years ago that they even existed. LOL
I say give it a shot, you’ll know better than anyone else how they compare – no one has has your exact palate, just you.