Oh, tater tots. The sweet little balls of potatoey heaven. They come frozen in a bag and it only takes like twenty minutes to heat them up in the oven. So filling, so crisp, everything a hungry student could dream of. Of course, the main ingredient in tater tots (potatoes) is not necessarily the healthiest ingredient that could be used. Today I decided to try making tater tots without any potatoes. I instead decided to swap potatoes out for broccoli and cauliflower, simply to add some nutrients and to lessen the carb load.
I first started by adding some water to a pot to boil and preheating my oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Next, I roughly chopped up some broccoli. In this recipe, it is not as important to chop everything evenly as it ends up in the food processor anyway.
Next, I added my broccoli to the boiling water and left it to cook for about seven minutes.
I then roughly chopped up some cauliflower. I did not use measurements for this recipe and simply just chopped up about the same amount of cauliflower as I did broccoli.
I then processed my cauliflower and waited for my broccoli to finish cooking.
Next, I processed my broccoli once it was cooked.
After each ingredient was processed I used a think kitchen cloth to ring out the extra moisture in the broccoli and cauliflower. I would have preferred to use a cheesecloth to ring out the moisture but I do not have one. The towel I used seemed to work just fine but I think the cheesecloth would have gotten just a bit more of the moisture out which would have made forming the tots a bit easier.
I then added two eggs and started mixing it in before I remembered to take a picture (whoops!).
Next, I added some shredded cheese and parmesan to help hold the tots together.
Lastly, I added some flour to help bind the tots together as they still had a bit more moisture than I would have liked at this point in the process.
I then formed the tots into..well…tots. This part was the hardest for sure. I had obviously not gotten enough moisture out and nothing wanted to stick together. I was able to spend some time forming each tot carefully and finally made them all stick. I then put the tots in the oven to cook for about twenty-five minutes.
I flipped the tots during their cooking and then they came out nice and crispy. Once the tots had cooked and the cheese had melted they stayed together very well and did not try to fall apart on me even once! These tots hold much more nutrients than the storebought freezer bag and they are much less carb-loaded than classic tater tots as well. So while I do appreciate the healthy snack it did not replace tater tots even in the slightest. I will be considering this our first fail as it just simply did not satisfy the way tater tots do.
That’s all for this week! Thanks for reading!
All photos taken by myself.
