One of my favorite snacks from childhood is the classic potato tater tots. They are everything that a kid loves: salty and fried. The problem with them is that they aren't healthy but that can easily change.
My broccoli tots are made without deep frying and include chopped broccoli florets for the addition of a healthy vegetable that your little one might not even notice. You can also freeze them afterward so you can pull them out as needed, just like store-bought but better.
Key Ingredients You Need
- Broccoli — You can use fresh or frozen florets to make these tots with.
- Parmesan — To add some extra saltiness and savory flavor to your tots, parmesan is mixed into it.
- Breadcrumbs — Feel free to use panko if you have that instead. The breadcrumbs help hold onto the moisture when your taters are baking. Leave them out and you might end up with a dry broccoli tot.
How to Make Broccoli Tots
Step 1: Preheat oven to 400°F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
Step 2: Heat a pot of water and bring to a boil. Blanch the broccoli in the boiling water for 1 minute then drain.
Step 3: Very finely chop the florets and add to a mixing bowl with onions, egg, parmesan cheese, breadcrumbs, parsley, Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper. Mix well.
Step 4: Scoop out about 1 tbsp of the mixture and form the tots into cylindrical shapes with flat ends with your hands (think classic tater tot shape). Place onto baking sheet.
Step 5: Drizzle tots with olive oil and bake in oven for 20-25 minutes, turning halfway.
Step 6: Serve and enjoy these broccoli tots with your favorite dipping sauce.
Tips For This Recipe
- If you’d like this to be gluten-free, you can use a gluten-free breadcrumbs.
- If you’re not a fan of chopping up the florets finely, you can simply add everything to a food processor and blitz it up. Make sure you leave a little bit of texture. You can also run the broccoli through a box grater as well.
- If you’re short on time, you can use frozen broccoli “rice” as it’s essentially finely chopped broccoli.
- While I haven’t tried to make a vegan version of this, you could in theory swap the egg for a flax egg and nutritional yeast in place of the parmesan cheese.
Frequently Asked Questions
The biggest reason why you should consider making your own broccoli tots at home is that by making them yourself, you know exactly what every ingredient is. Even if you do a good job reading the ingredient label for a prepackaged item, odds are that the company puts in preservatives to keep that item lasting as long as possible in the packaging. By making the tots yourself, you can ensure that every ingredient you use is high quality and fresh. You will taste the difference too!
Yes, you can use a few different vegetables in these tots. Broccoli is a great choice because you can chop up the broccoli florets really small, and they make for a good binding vegetable. Cauliflower makes for a great tot as well. If you're not a fan of cauliflower, I would also suggest that you could use zucchini or spinach if broccoli isn't your favorite vegetable. If you plan on using zucchini, use a peeler to shave off thin slices of the zucchini and then chop those up really small and then squeeze any excess water out. You can also use a food processor to do the work.
The reason I added cheese to this recipe was two-fold: first, I wanted to add an ingredient that helped bind the tots together so that they would stay whole and not fall apart during the cooking process. Second, the cheese adds a little bit of salt and flavor boost that I feel makes these tots taste incredible.
These broccoli tots will stay good in your refrigerator for up to 3 days. You can freeze them and they will last 1 month in the freezer. Be sure to freeze them in a single layer on a sheet pan before transferring them to a freezer-safe bag. This prevents them from sticking together in a clump.
It may take a few batches but you can definitely make these in the air fryer. You can get that deep-fried texture with only a bit of oil! Cook in an air fryer for around 11 minutes at 400° F, giving the basket a shake at the halfway mark.
IF YOU LOVE THIS RECIPE TRY THESE OUT!
If you’ve tried this Broccoli Tots Recipe then don’t forget to leave me a rating and let me know how it went in the comments below!
Broccoli Tots
Ingredients
- 2 cups broccoli florets
- ½ cup parmesan cheese grated
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp pepper
- ¼ cup onion grated or finely chopped
- 1 egg
- ⅔ cup breadcrumbs or panko
- 2 tbsp parsley chopped
- 1 tbsp Italian Seasoning
- olive oil to taste
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400°F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
- Heat a pot of water and bring to a boil. Blanch the broccoli in the boiling water for 1 minute then drain.
- Very finely chop the broccoli and add to a mixing bowl with onions, egg, parmesan cheese, breadcrumbs, parsley, Italian seasoning, salt and pepper. Mix well. (You also do this step in a food processor if you wish.)
- Scoop out about 1 tbsp of the mixture and form the tots into cylindrical shapes with flat ends with your hands (think classic tater tot shape). Place onto baking sheet.
- Drizzle tots with olive oil and bake in oven for 20-25 minutes, turning halfway.
- Serve and enjoy with your favorite dipping sauce.
Notes
- If you’d like this to be gluten-free, you can use a gluten-free breadcrumb.
- If you’re not a fan of chopping up the florets finely, you can simply add everything to a food processor and blitz it up. Make sure you leave a little bit of texture. You can also run the broccoli through a box grater as well.
- If you’re short on time, you can use frozen broccoli “rice” as it’s essentially finely chopped broccoli.
- While I haven’t tried to make a vegan version of this, you could in theory swap the egg for flax egg and nutritional yeast in place of the parmesan cheese.
Thank you for catching this! It is fixed now 🙂
How many cups of breadcrumbs...it’s a mystery;)
Haha so sorry about that! It should read 2/3 cup of breadcrumbs, the post has been updated now. Thank you so much for letting me know about this glitch.