Looking at all the latest recipes I posted, I realize I’ve been depriving you of some serious carbs. I mean sure, I made some pancakes…. but I’m talking savory carbs. Like these olive oil broccoli muffins!
Now, before I jump into these, I just want to say happy almost Halloween! Are you excited? I love Halloween, if for nothing else it’s for all the movies I always watch. Admittedly, I have not seen the remake of IT just yet, but I want to and I can’t wait for it to come out on DVD so I can rent it. I originally wanted to go out and watch it on the big screen but I’m not so sure about that right now.
Now…are you ready?
All aboard the broccoli muffin train! You won’t regret it. Maybe you’re thinking that broccoli and muffins don’t go together, but they really do. Amazingly well actually.
I first saw a broccoli muffin recipe in a Donna Hay magazine, but that recipe also included prosciutto which you know I can’t have. So I decided to make my own recipe that involves sun-dried tomatoes. First of all, I absolutely love sun-dried tomatoes and wish I could put them on everything and secondly, they kind of have a meaty taste once you bake with them. Which is both interesting and amazing and just really tasty.
The second thing that I love in these olive oil broccoli muffins is the savoy cabbage! Yesss… I put that in too. But trust that it works. Donna Hay uses kale, which is hard to get where I live (or maybe I’m just blind and can’t find it) so I opted for savoy cabbage. It’s pretty similar to kale actually, but milder in taste and a perfect substitute.
The rest of the ingredients are pretty classic – eggs, milk, spices, olive oil (no butter here) and the mighty broccoli. You cook it until tender and then mash it, so if you make these muffins for kids you can be pleased knowing they’re eating all the broccoli without even knowing. How cool is that?
Oh, I also threw some cheese in there, because why not?
These olive oil broccoli muffins are pretty easy to make and you can eat them at any hour of the day, because they’re that awesome. You can have these as a quick breakfast on the go, or you can make a salad for lunch and munch on these at the same time. They also work as a snack or a dinner side and if you’re having people over, I think they’d enjoy these with a cold drink.
Let’s start broccol-ing!
Recipe
Olive oil broccoli muffins
Ingredients
- 600 g 1.3 pounds broccoli, trimmed and cut into florets
- 100 g 3.5 oz sun-dried tomatoes, roughly chopped
- 50 g 1/2 cup grated Edam cheese (or similar type of melty, mild cheese)
- 100 g 3.5 oz savoy cabbage leaves, chopped (yield = 2 cups / 480ml)
- 2 eggs
- 240 ml 1 cup milk
- 120 ml 1/2 cup olive oil
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- small pinch of black pepper
- 350 g 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
- 4 teaspoons baking powder
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180°C (355°F). Line a 12-cup muffin pan with muffin liners, set aside.
- Bring a medium pot of salted water to a boil and toss in the broccoli. Cook for about 5 minutes, until tender (may take longer if your florets are big). Drain broccoli and transfer to a large bowl filled with super cold water. Drain after about a minute and transfer broccoli to a large mixing bowl.
- Crush broccoli with a fork. Add the tomatoes, cheese, cabbage. In a separate bowl whisk together eggs, milk, olive oil, salt and pepper. Stir this into the broccoli mixture.
- Lastly, sprinkle flour and baking powder over the mixture. Keep folding ingredients together with a spatula until they are well combined. The mixture will be thick and maybe even difficult to stir, but you want it like that. As long as it’s moist and there are no crumbs or dry patches of flour you’re good. (If that happens, you can add a tablespoon of milk to the batter, and continue to do so, until the batter is moistened.)
- Divide the batter evenly between 12 muffin cups and bake in the center of the oven for 25-30 minutes, until tops are slightly golden brown and a skewer inserted in the center of any muffin comes out clean.
- Cool muffins in the pan for 5-10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack. Serve warm or cold. Store leftover muffins in an airtight container in the refrigerator (although I forgot mine on the kitchen counter and they still tasted fine) and eat within a day (I don’t know if these last any longer than that because we always eat them before that).
Notes
If you use classic muffin liners and fill the cups almost to the edge, you can squeeze out 24 small muffins with this recipe.
Alternately, you can use tulip muffin cases (or a homemade alternative with parchment paper), which are taller and allow you to fill the cups a bit more. If you pile up the batter a bit over the edge and push it down with a spoon, you can get 12 normal-sized muffins.
If you look at the images above you’ll notice the size difference, because I tried both versions. The size does not affect the flavor though. I think the bigger muffins look nicer, however some people prefer the smaller ones. You could also probably make 6 jumbo muffins, but the baking time may change.Recipe inspired by Donna Hay magazine.