Zucchini Chickpea Fritters

Crunchy on the outside and creamy on the inside, these savory little zucchini chickpea fritters are totally addictive, full of delicious cheesy garlic flavor. Full of protein and fiber, they’re very filling. Eat them straight up, serve with your favorite dipping sauce or use them as the base for a sandwich. You’re going to love this new way of enjoying zucchini!

Adapted from The Veg Life. I chanced upon this recipe for zucchini fritters as I was cruising around the internet looking for zucchini recipes. I was immediately intrigued … they looked a little like felafel, except with little specks of zucchini green in them! I couldn’t wait to try them. These crunchy fritters are like heart-healthy savory little “pancakes” with a crunch! Who doesn’t love pancakes?

I loved that the recipe didn’t make me squeeze out the juices from the zucchini. That’s one of my least favorite things to do. I’d rather find creative ways to use zucchini that absorb the zucchini juices … like this Magic Greek Zucchini Casserole or my Zucchini Chia Pizza Crust.

The other reason I was excited to try this recipe is because it’s got chickpea flour in it. Chickpeas are naturally high in fiber and great for heart health and your digestive system. I happened to have a bag of chickpea flour I’d bought a while ago to make Socca, but that hasn’t happened yet.

It’s the chickpea flour that saves us from squeezing water out of zucchini here … and seriously, who likes to squeeze water out of zucchini?

What’s Chickpea flour? And where do I find it?

Chickpea flour is nothing complicated … it’s simply ground up chickpeas. Chickpea flour is naturally gluten free, high in protein and high in fiber and it works great as a flour substitute as well as for thickening soups and sauces. You can buy chickpea flour in the gluten/free or health section of your grocery store or online … or you can simply grind up some dried chickpeas.

I haven’t tried making my own yet, but so far, I’m really liking chickpea flour. It soaks up liquids like nobody’s business and cooks up really nicely. You can attribute the dreamy creaminess in these fritters to the the chickpea flour.

I am so smitten with the flavors and textures in these zucchini fritters! I practically inhaled them as soon as they were done and then kept having to make more to finish the pictures because I couldn’t … stop … munching. Since I made extras for the photos, I’ve also discovered that they still taste good cold, with a smear of tuna salad and some fresh sweet garden tomato slices on top. How much better that would be if the fritter was hot and fresh!?!?

The rest of the batter I’ve stashed away in a container in my fridge, for later. So I can enjoy zucchini chickpea fritters all week long if I want to. (And why the hell wouldn’t I want to?)

Before we get on to the recipe, since I WAS just cruising around looking at zucchini recipes all over the web, I just have to share one of my zucchini recipe pet peeves before we move on … it’s one of those things that makes me scream (almost) every time I see it! I will often encounter recipes that call for “medium zucchini”. If you’ve ever grown zucchini, you might know that zucchini come in ALL shapes and sizes, anywhere from 4 – 6 inches to a base ball bat size, some zucchini get as long as 2 -3 feet long (but MUCH fatter than your average baseball bat!) How then, do you even begin to define what a “medium” zucchini is? For some recipes (like stir-fries) it doesn’t really matter so much, but with recipes like this, it’s really important to know just how much zucchini you’re putting into the batter because you need to offset the zucchini juice with the appropriate amount of flour. This is why I typically try to give you an idea of how many cups of zucchini you’ll need, especially in these types of recipes where it really matters.

Whew. Glad that’s off my chest. Let’s get to making some zucchini chickpea fritters now, shall we?

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This analysis is an estimate, based on ingredients used. Fat not included in nutrition analysis. It’s hard to know how much fat the fritters absorb.