The delicious Vegan Zucchini Corn Fritter packed with big juicy corn kernels, lots of spice and alliums; makes a great breakfast or after-school snack. Topped with relish, salad greens and a grilled protein of choice, it becomes an excellent light lunch!
How Do You Make A Good Vegan Fritter?
If I had a penny for every time someone asks me this question, well I would have a big jar full of pennies. You see, growing up in India eggs only had two purposes. To become an omelet for a hot breakfast or to be baked into a butter cake for a special occasion. The notion of adding eggs to batters was non-existent. All our fritters and pancakes were egg-free and only relied on water and occasionally milk.
So the answer to that question "How do you make a good vegan fritter?" is really simple - leave the egg out and don't add any dairy in any form! Whether the veggies you use have starch or not, water is often enough to bind the flour and other ingredients into a solid batter that will not be soggy/gluggy/hard when cooked.
Salting Zucchinis
As with all my other zucchini recipes, salting a zucchini is the very first and very essential step to make good fritters. The salt draws the excess liquid out which you can squeeze and discard. This liquid would have otherwise waterlogged your fritter and rendered it into a hot soggy mess.
I have tried not salting and squeezing the zucchini too. I was curious to see what the end result was if I cleverly avoided the salting and squeezing and just let the natural liquid of the zucchini become the binder rather than using water. It didn't work. It is very hard to predict how much liquid a zucchini will release. Whereas if you squeeze the zucchini dry, and add water; you know exactly how much water to add to make the perfect fritter.
The recipe below makes 4 large fritters. You could make 6-7 small ones too. I like them large as I make them during meal prep for early morning breakfasts or early light lunches. When they are large like this, they can be popped in a toaster to warm up from the fridge. They also become a substantial meal when topped with some smoked salmon, a nice relish or salsa verde and salad greens.
Recipe
Hungry For More Recipes? Subscribe to my newsletter. Check out Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest to see everything I share! And if you love cooking and new cookbooks, join my free Cooking Club on Facebook!
Ingredients
- 1 (200 g) medium zucchini, grated
- 1 cup corn kernels, fresh or canned
- ½ cup spring onion, sliced (green only)
- Handful of coriander leaves, chopped
- 1 teaspoon red chilli flakes
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1 teaspoon wholegrain mustard
- 1 tablespoon onion flakes
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 cup (150 g) plain flour
- 1 teaspoon sea salt flakes + extra for salting the zucchini
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ cup water
- Olive oil for frying
Instructions
- Place grated zucchini in a bowl. Sprinkle with a large pinch of sea salt flakes. Mix well and set aside for 10 minutes.
- Add corn kernels, spring onion, coriander, chilli flakes, smoked paprika, mustard, onion flakes, flour, salt and baking powder in a large bowl.
- Transfer the grated zucchini into a sieve or perforated colander. Rest it on top of a solid bowl or sink and squeeze and drain as much liquid as you can from the zucchini.
- Add the squeezed zucchini to the large bowl with all the other ingredients. Add water and mix to form a thick fritter batter.
- Heat a teaspoon of olive oil in a cast-iron frying pan on medium. Add a quarter of the batter in a 5-inch round and ½-inch high fritter into the pan. Cook each side for 4-5 minutes until golden and cooked through the middle. If starting to brown too quickly, reduce heat by a little to allow the fritter to cook through the middle.
- Repeat with the remaining batter. Cooked fritters can be eaten straight away with a relish and salad greens. The fritters keep well in the fridge for up to 2 days. They can be frozen, wrapped in baking paper and stored in freezer safe containers for up to 2 weeks.
These are delicious. The only thing is that the recipe instructions never told me to add the garlic, so I forgot. Delicious without it.
Great recipe, thank you!
My first time making fritters. We really enjoyed the taste and texture. I added some dried leeks because I didn't have spring onions. 1 tsp red pepper flakes was perfect but next time, I may add less and top it off with hot sauce. I created my zucchini the night before. I used fresh corn from the cob.
Ignore my question you answered it right at the beginning of the blog...I had a giant zucchini which was quite dry so I think it worked OK as it had less moisture !
Thank you for the recipe, I'm trying to learn as much as I can right now about vegetarian cookery and this recipe looks good. One point I would love to understand, may I ask why are we are squeezing the moisture out of the zucchini to then add water back in? I don't feel like Zucchini liquid would hold much in way of starchiness so I'm curious on this? Please help ?
Looks delicious! I love cooking these fritters for my kids’ lunches.
I doubled the recipe and froze them as snacks for my adult kids to throw in the flat iron. Seriously delicious - as expected from Sneh.
Fabulous! Thank you so much Mel x