These delicious brown rice, brown lentil and vegetable patties are a great vegetarian recipe that you can use for dinner and lunch. They’re loaded with protein and long lasting carbohydrates, perfect for keeping tummies full. They’re delicious served warm with a great big dollop of hummus or tzatziki and a salad or steamed vegetables for dinner. The leftovers are super yummy for the lunchbox too. We served ours in cos lettuce leaves so wrapped around the patties.

Adjust the size of the patties for however you want to serve them. I made these ones into smaller shapes so they were suitable for the lunchbox as well as the dinner plate. See below for 2 other ideas. Let me know how you use them in the comments below.

Ingredients

1 cup cooked brown rice
1 x 400g brown lentils
1 small zucchini grated
1 small carrot, grated
1 tsp cumin
½ tsp coriander
½ tsp garam masala
½ cup gf plain flour
2 eggs whisked
S&P to taste
Sesame seeds to coat
Coconut oil to shallow fry

Method

1. Put all ingredients up to sesame seeds in a food processor. Blend for 30 seconds to mix then pulse a few times until it forms a thick paste.

2. Refrigerate 15-30 mins.

3. Put a big pile of sesame seeds on a plate, take a heaped tablespoon of mixture into your hands to form a patty. Drop in the sesame seeds and turn to coat it all around. This mixture is quite soft so you need to be a bit gentle with how you toss them. Repeat until all the mixture is used.

4. Heat a pan with a tbsp of coconut oil over medium heat. When heated, put in patties. Cook each side for about 3-4 minutes. Keep an eye on the heat, if it’s too hot the sesame seeds may cook too quick. You may need to add a little more coconut oil to cook all of them. Adjust the cooking time depending on the size of the patty you make. Bigger, fatter ones will require longer to cook through.

5. Cook in batched until all the mixture is used up.

2 Other Ways

– Make the patty bigger and fatter and serve as a hamburger. Choose a good quality wholegrain roll or sourdough, and load it with delicious salad items.

– Make smaller falafel size, and serve in a wrap with salads. You could even toast the wrap for extra yum factor.

The story behind this recipe

For the last year, we have been trying to have more vegetable based meals every Monday night as part of the Meatless Monday food movement. I have a tendency to fall back to curries and stir fries. This year, I am trying extra hard to create other dishes too which work well for dinner and lunch box.

This week, on Monday I did home ec with Indrani for her schooling and she asked to learn how to make spaghetti Bolognese, so we didn’t actually do Meatless Monday because she really wanted to eat the meal she made. No complaints from me there – a night off! But it did actually give me the headspace to try out some vegetable ideas. This brown rice, brown lentil and vegetable pattie was a success, so I am sharing it with you. I hope you enjoy them!
Just a reminder, you don’t need to be a master chef, or have a big spotless kitchen to make awesome nutritious meals or snacks for your family.