Meatless Monday: Spinach Brown Rice Balls
by Mar 14th, 2011 // Dinner, Kid-tastic, Meatless Mondays
Meatless Monday: Spinach Brown Rice Balls
We could all use a little more green in our lives and since it’s almost St. Patrick’s day, I decided we’d dedicate the next few posts to green food. Here’s the background on these amazingly deelish balls: Between the rice cooker and ordering in, we often have left over rice in the fridge that gets thrown away. Since both kids and the vegetarian husband are all fans of rice, we made ourselves a nice little vegetarian version of meatballs.
My kid wasn’t feeling well and got the super special treatment of being allowed to eat dinner on the sofa while watching TV. I’m a horrible mother but at least he was eating brown rice and spinach. They were a serious hit and that’s not just the zombie-Scooby Doo-watching-kid talking, my husband said “you could make these once a week for the rest of my life and I’d be a happy man.” So simple to make and done in under 30 minutes!
Spinach Brown Rice Balls Recipe
Prep Time: 10 mins Cooking Time: 20 – 25 mins
Ingredients:
2 cups cooked brown rice (works best with day old, stickier rice)
2 egg whites
1 10 oz package frozen spinach, thawed
1 shallot finely, chopped
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup Italian bread crumbs
1/2 cup mozzarella cheese
salt and pepper
olive oil cooking spray
marinara sauce
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a baking sheet or prepare it with a Silpat.
2. Saute shallots in olive oil in a pan over medium heat until translucent. Add spinach and garlic and continue to saute until most of the moisture is cooked off. Set aside.
3. In a medium bowl mix together brown rice, egg whites, bread crumbs, and mozzarella cheese. Add salt and pepper to taste.
4. Mix in spinach and use hands to form golf ball sized rice balls. Place each rice ball on the prepared baking sheet.
5. Spray tops of rice balls with cooking spray and bake for 20 to 25 minutes until lightly browned and slightly crispy.
6. Serve with marinara sauce for dipping.
Makes approximately 2 dozen.
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Just made this- These are delicious. Great recipe, love love love. Thank you!
THESE ARE THE BEST PICKY BUSTERS EVER. My preschool class gobbled them up…and proceeded to 'spinach-rice-ball' evangelize to their not-so-spinach-enthusiastic peers. And it worked. Spinach rice ball conversion success. We'll definitely be making these again and again
These look so good, we’re making them tomorrow! We’re about to have another baby, so my time will be more sparse. Do you think they would freeze well (for the toddler)?
[…] at home so we scoured our own salad recipes and came up with Edamame Caprese, Fennel Orange Salad, Spinach Brown Rice Balls and Meyer Lemon Tea Cakes for […]
Hey, just wanted to let readers know that this works with broccoli too. I didn’t have spinach (oddly). I used some frozen broccoli florets (almost all of a 16oz. bag), thawed them, zipped them in a food processor and treated them like I have the spinach in previous batches. Worked just great and tasted great too.
[…] recipe for these little wonders can be found at Cooking With My Kid by clicking here. Also I’m super jealous she can get her kid to eat these. Mine look at me […]
[…] Spinach and Rice Balls (Photo credit: Meatless Monday) […]
can i use fresh spinach?
This looks great! Cannot wait to try it!
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[…] – Spinach Brown Rice Balls from Cooking with My […]