These meatless nuggets are delicious and still packed with protein. Lentils are a great option to make a high protein and cheap meal for kids.

Meatless Nuggets For Kids

It’s important for me to feed my kids foods that they look forward to, or beg to eat. I want my kids to one day say, “My mom always made the best food” or “My favorite dish mom made was…” Cooking is just such a passion of mine, but eating plant based has caused this common saying among my kids, “Well we can’t eat THAT anymore…” That is why I have created these meatless nuggets.

I want my kids to get excited about plant based eating, and NO my kids are not plant based 100%, only at home. So creating these nuggets was important to me, and the kids LOVE them!!!! YAY!!!!

Affordable Meatless Foods

These meatless nuggets are so easy to prepare and very cheap to make. Meat is expensive, and frozen chicken nuggets are generally packed with ingredients I don’t want my kids to eat. This is a great whole foods meatless nugget option to get my kids excited about meal time and even better for my grocery budget.

You can customize the flavors of these kid friendly nuggets to taste however you’d like!

Additional add-ins to these meatless nuggets could be:

¼ tsp liquid smoke
¼ tsp turmeric powder and pepper
more garlic powder
Italian seasoning
Cumin and other Mexican spices
mashed sweet potatoes

Plant-Based Nuggets

Eating Healthy Spending Less

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Cuisine Main Dishes, Recipes, School Lunch Ideas

Servings 4 people

Ingredients

2 cups cooked brown rice
1 (15oz) can lentils, drained and rinsed white beans could also be used
2 Tbsp. nutritional yeast
2 Tbsp. ketchup tomato paste could work too
1 tsp. garlic powder
½ tsp. salt
3 Tbsp. water

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
Mix all ingredients together in a food processor, minus the water.
As you'll see, it's hard to get the rice and lentils to totally combine, so use the water to help bind the mixture. You might not need all 3 Tbsp, depending on how much liquid your rice has, so use your best judgment. You want the mixture to totally combine, and still be very thick.
Use a cookie scoop to scoop out your nuggets. Once you fill your tray, wet your fingers and gently push the nuggets down to take on a "nugget" shape.
Bake for 25-30 minutes. Then, pull out and let the nuggets rest for a few minutes before transferring to a plate or cooling rack.

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