Comforting little egg-free frittatas that are perfect for breakfast, brunch, lunch or snacking, when only savoury will do.

Out on the boat today it was cold and windy and I wished I had a savoury muffin or something, rather than my cold smoothie. So I found this recipe for mini chickpea flour frittatas on The Simple Veganista’s blog, and in typical ‘me’ fashion, modified it.

Ingredients

2 tsp oil for frying (macadamia or avocado oil are best, but olive can work too) and a bit more for greasing the muffin pan

2/3 cup spring onion, thinly sliced

2/3 cup chopped broccoli or shredded zucchini

2/3 cup corn kernels (frozen works best)

[Now, I say 2/3 cup of each vegetable, but it’s a loose instruction.]

1 tbsp chopped fresh thyme

1 cup chickpea (besan) flour

2 heaped tbsp nutritional yeast flakes

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp garlic powder (what a revelation it’s been, finding this product)

1 tsp sea salt

1 tbsp chopped fresh chives

1 cup water

Instructions

Heat the oven to 190 degrees Celsius.

Lightly oil a muffin pan, or something similar.

Heat the oil in a fry pan, and gently saute the vegetables and thyme – mostly just to get the spring onions softened and with some light charring.

Add all the dry ingredients and the chopped chives in a bowl, and whisk together.

Add in the water and whisk until combined. It will be running, so don’t freak out that it’s not muffin-batter-like.

Mix in the sauteed vegetables, then pour into the muffin pan thingies. As you can see below, I used some kind of mini bar cake pan (which would be nice for mini banana bread loaves).

Bake for 35 minutes. If you’re using my oven, that is. All ovens vary, so check: if a toothpick comes out wet, bake for another 5 or 10 minutes.

Apparently they should just enthusiastically tumble out of the pan onto the cooling rack, if you’ve oiled properly or have a non-stick muffin pan. I did both, and could only get them out with the help of Mr Spatula. But they taste excellent and were worth the hassle to coax them out of the pan.

Next cold and windy boat trip, I’ll be taking some of these instead of a cold smoothie.