Low-Calorie Oven-Baked Red Quinoa and Zucchini Patties

This week, Noam Bechar (the nutritionist) and I decided to start a 21-day challenge where we get our act together and commit to a structured nutrition and home workout routine.

During these times, when we don't have much of a routine and are home all day, it's important to create—even artificially—a specific schedule:

Waking up in the morning, working out at a set time, and eating meals at organized hours.

This way, we can use this uncertain period to our advantage and even reach goals we never had time to achieve before.

We published our daily menu here and you are welcome to follow along and join us. You can use this menu as a base or build a new, personalized one.

Feel free to reach out to Noam directly via her Instagram account and tell her Hagai sent you :)

In my opinion, a clear advantage of this period is being forced to cook much more at home.

This way, we control the amount of fat and sugar we add to our dishes (let's set aside the endless pile of dishes for a second).

As part of the challenge to return to a nutritional routine, you can bake these quinoa and zucchini patties, which are rich in protein and low in carbs.

Note that there is a wonderful protein-to-carb ratio here.

You can eat these patties as a protein source for lunch, for example.

Add them to your plate combined with a whole grain or oven-roasted sweet potato, and there you have a complete and nutritious meal.

A bit about the red quinoa and zucchini patties

The base of the patties is red quinoa, zucchini, and soy flour.

I used red quinoa instead of the regular white kind simply because it's what I had in my kitchen; you can easily swap it for regular white quinoa. Just note that red quinoa usually requires a slightly longer cooking time.

I used grated zucchini to provide volume with minimum calories.

You can replace it with eggplant, cooked broccoli, or cooked frozen peas.

If you aren't concerned about calories, grated sweet potato or regular potato will also work and taste delicious.

As a protein addition and a binding agent, I used soy flour. You can substitute it with chickpea or lentil flour (but the protein-carb-fat values will change).

For a healthy dose of fat and as an additional binder, I used raw whole tahini. You can swap this for almond butter.

To create a bit of softness, I added half a teaspoon of baking powder. It's not mandatory, but don't come back to me later saying they turned out too dense! :)

The spices are just my recommendation. Feel free to go wild with whatever you like.

Nutritional Values:

One red quinoa and zucchini patty out of 30. (The weight of the patty varies based on the amount of liquid the quinoa absorbs during cooking).

• 50 calories
• 4g protein
• 5g carbohydrates
• 1.5g fat

Print

Red Quinoa and Zucchini Patties

Juicy, rich in protein, and low in calories

Prep time 10 minutes

Cook time 30 minutes

Servings 30 patties

Calories 50 kcal

Ingredients

• 1 cup uncooked red quinoa 170g
• 1 cup soy flour 150g
• 1 grated zucchini
• 1/3 cup raw tahini 45g
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp paprika
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 clove crushed garlic
• juice of half a lemon
• 1/2 tsp salt

Instructions

1. Rinse the quinoa thoroughly under running water in a fine-mesh strainer for 2-3 minutes.

2. Transfer to a deep pot, add 3 cups of water, and cook for about half an hour until the quinoa softens.

3. Preheat your oven to 170°C.

4. Drain most of the liquid and transfer to a deep bowl (the quinoa shouldn't be bone dry; it’s best to leave a little bit of the cooking water).

5. Add the grated zucchini, soy flour, tahini, and the rest of the ingredients. Mix well until the mixture becomes sticky and uniform.

6. With wet hands, form patties about the size of a ping-pong ball and place them on a lined baking tray.

7. Bake for about half an hour until the patties are slightly browned.

8. Remove from the oven and let them cool. They will firm up and become more stable as they cool down.

9. Enjoy every bite!

Recipe Video