Easy & Delicious Bean Zucchini Fritters Recipe

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Try This Vegetarian Bean Zucchini Fritters Recipe For a Change!

If you’re looking for a quick dinner idea, fritters can be a great option. Fritters are versatile – they can be healthy or not, baked, fried, made vegan, whatever you like!

We’ve been trying to eat healthy over the last few months. We’ve got a handle on healthy snacks that we love, and we’ve even stayed pretty committed to eating a salad every day for lunch. That said, some days – we just crave something fried!

Since we really like zucchini, we decided to hunt for a great zucchini fritters recipe. After numerous substitutions and changes, we’ve now perfected our bean zucchini fritters recipe! Our crispy zucchini fritters are fried but you can do them differently.

So, we’ll tell you step-by-step how we make them (with photos), what you can add or leave out, and what to serve them with! Ready to cook? Let’s fry some fritters!

Also Try Out Our Crispy 5-Minute Tomato Mozzarella Wraps

How to Make Bean Zucchini Fritters

This is how we make our bean zucchini fritters. Of course, you can change up the recipe – and we’ll tell you where you can do that and what ideas we’ve already considered to help inspire you.

First, we wash and drain the kidney beans. Get out a strainer in the sink and give them a nice little bath. This is if they are canned. You could definitely also use another type of bean (black, pinto, etc) since they are generally the same consistency mashed up.

white strainer full of kidney beans zucchini fritters recipe
Kidney beans having a bath.

Next we mash the kidney beans. We use a fork but you can use a potato masher if you have one.

bowl of kidney beans being mashed zucchini fritters recipe
Mashing the beans with a fork takes time….

The beans should look like this – they need to be more of a paste since they fry easier without large chunks.

mashed kidney beans in bowl zucchini fritters recipe
Bean paste, essentially.

Next up, finely chop the onion. Again, the smaller the better since larger clumps make frying/mixing more difficult.

chopped onions on green cutting board zucchini fritters recipe
Chop, chop, chop.

Mix the onions into the mashed beans. Pretty self-explanatory.

clear bowl with mashed food inside zucchini fritters recipe
Onions and beans sharing a snuggle in the bowl.

Next, you’ll wash, dry, and trim your zucchini. We have a green cutting board so that they feel more at home, but any color will do.

bowl with mashed food and two zucchinis on green cutting board zucchini fritters recipe
Oh no, here comes zucchini to ruin the snuggle.

Next, grab your spiralizer OR grater and get that zucchini smaller. If you want to know what a spiralizer is, you can find one here. It’s exactly like the one we have – which is a manual one.

bowl with mashed food and cut up zucchini on cutting board fritters recipe
Zucchini is officially spiralized.

As you may have guessed, add the zucchini to the bowl of relatively dry ingredients thus far.

bowl of mashed food and zucchini on wooden table fritters recipe

Next, mix the contents of the bowl. You can use a spatula or your hands. Lisa likes to use her hands because it’s easier to control where the things go.

mixed together ingredients in clear bowl zucchini fritters recipe
Mix, mix, mix!

Now, add your eggs. Two whole eggs right into the batter. You can opt out of eggs here and choose to put in an egg substitute if you are vegan (we haven’t personally tried that yet, though). Mix all of that together in the bowl.

eggs in carton and bowl of ingredients zucchini fritters recipe
This is only one egg – add the other one, too!

Time to add flour. We use buckwheat flour since it’s a little more dense (and generally healthier than white flour) but you can choose any flour you like. Just remember it MAY change the moisture level of the batter so you might have to add more of less water in the next few steps.

bowl of ingredients with measuring cup beside zucchini fritters recipe

Finally, mix together all those ingredients. You’re aiming for a thick batter that doesn’t run very easily. If it’s too thick, add a bit of water (or milk) and mix. Too runny? Add more flour.

bowl of ingredients mixed together zucchini fritters recipe
The final batter before frying!

Now that the batter is done, toss the oil in the pan and get it heated and ready to fry. Medium/high heat is best – too hot and it’ll make the oil/pan smoke.

pan with oil on stove with bowl beside bean zucchini fritters recipe
Get the oil nice and hot.

Take a tablespoon and place a heaping amount of batter into the pan. We could fit three in our pan to fry comfortably. We flattened them a bit with the spoon but they will do this naturally when flipped.

raw batter in pan with oil zucchini fritters recipe
Frying one side of the fritters.

After about 3 minutes, the bottom is golden brown and solid to flip. Grab your flipper and turn them over. You can use a fork to guide the flip and so that you don’t splash the hot oil. BE CAREFUL HERE.

frying fritters in pan of oil zucchini fritters recipe
Looking golden brown!

Basically just brown the other side and flip again after about 2/3 minutes as needed to keep the sides evenly cooked.

stack of fried bean zucchini fritters on green plate recipe
The finished product!

Stack the fritters on a plate – you can even pat them down with a paper towel to catch excess oil. Eat them as soon as you can because they are great fresh out of the pan. Let them cool a bit though, obviously.

plate of bean zucchini fritters recipe with tomato and pita

Aaand done! We like to eat them in a pita with tzatziki, a tomato, lettuce, and/or cheese. Basically, it works really well as a burger patty alternative. Bruce eats his with sriracha for a hint of spice.

Read Next – How To Eat Healthy When You Have No Time

Bean Zucchini Fritters Recipe

zucchini fritter in pita with tomato on green plate zucchini fritters recipe
How we enjoy our fritters – SO good!

Ingredients

  • 1 can of kidney beans
  • 1 small onion
  • 2 small zucchini (or 1 big)
  • 2 eggs
  • vegetable oil
  • 1 cup of buckwheat flour
  • salt, pepper, paprika, garlic powder

Just so you know, these ingredients make about 8-10 fritters. It really depends on how much batter you scoop out into each one when frying.

Step-by-Step Instructions

Here are the step-by-step instructions for how we make our bean zucchini fritters.

  1. Wash and drain the kidney beans
  2. Mash kidney beans with a fork
  3. Finely chop the onion and add to kidney beans
  4. Wash and spiralize or grate the zucchini; add to mixture
  5. Mix this all together in the bowl
  6. Add two eggs and mix again
  7. Add flour and mix again (can add a splash of water if too dry here)
  8. Add salt, pepper, garlic powder, etc to taste
  9. Heat the pan with oil added
  10. Scoop one heaping table spoon into the pan (one per fritter)
  11. Flip and cook until both sides are golden brown and heated through
  12. Serve, garnish, and enjoy!

And there you have it – our recipe for bean zucchini fritters. As we mentioned, you can definitely change it up a bit to suit your tastes. We love this recipe like this – but we are definitely up for hearing about how you change it up. Get in touch and let us know if you make these fritters!

As always, Stay Curious,

-B&L

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Bean Zucchini Fritters Recipe