After a few hours of sitting in a classroom, many kids don’t want to spend more than a few minutes eating their lunch because it takes away from their playtime. Simple finger foods are a great way of ensuring they get nourishment but doesn’t take too long to eat.
This recipe is an awesome finger food for healthy lunchboxes. These vegetarian meatballs are great on their own, put on a roll, made into skewers and just as yummy heated and served as part of a main meal. More importantly, they are packed with protein to keep tummies full and sweet potato which contains vitamin A (good for the eyes), vitamin C (good for immunity), potassium (good for muscles) and loaded with fibre (good for stomach an intestines).
Ingredients
- 400g can chickpeas (drain & rinsed)
- 250g raw sweet potato
- 2 tspns Tahini
- 2 tspns Cumin
- 2 tblspns Chia Seed
- 1 egg
- Salt & Pepper
- 1/2 cup rice crumbs
- 1/4 cup flaxseed meal
- 1 tblspn herbamare vegetable salt
- Coconut Oil for baking
Directions
- Cut sweet potato into small chunks.
- Throw chickpeas, sweet potato, tahini, cumin, chia & eggs in your food processor, and blend until smooth.
- Add in salt & pepper, rice crumbs and flaxseed meal & blend until combined.
- With moist (not wet) hands, take about 1/2 tblspn of mixture and roll into a ball, and put on a plate. Makes about 20 balls.
- Put plate in fridge for 30 minutes. (At this point, I freeze whatever I am not going to use this week, so I can have them for another week).
- Preheat Oven to 180 degrees.
- Melt 1 tblspn coconut oil in a pan in the oven.
- Place herbamare on a plate and spread out with the back of a spoon.
- Lightly roll the balls in the herbamare salt.
- Place in the oven pan and roll them around in the coconut oil until all coated in oil.
- Bake for 8 mins, then roll the balls around for another 8 mins – they should be nice and crunchy now.
Freezing / Storing Instructions
Keep in fridge in air tight container. Can be frozen before cooking – freeze them in between sheets of baking paper and store in an air tight container.
Another 2 other ways to use this recipe
- Make a salad wrap, add the balls, add some tzatziki or hommus
- Serve as a main meal with some steamed broccoli, and a warm quinoa tabouli
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