Cheesy Quinoa Rice Balls, for the banchan spread

Turn your leftover rice into these crunchy savory quinoa rice balls! They are made with leftover rice, quinoa, whatever vegetables you have on hand, and cheese. Serve as is or with warm marinara sauce for dipping. Tasty!

It seems like we always have a ton of leftover rice in our fridge. Duh! So here we are, throwing an unfussy yet tasty recipe for cheesy quinoa rice balls to use up the leftover rice.

This is an unfussy recipe for using up your leftover rice all at once. They make a great appetizer, or finger food and use up leftover rice with. You have to use short grain rice, though. You will need the stickiness from the short grain.

How the dish comes together

Here is our leftover rice cooked with some quinoa seeds. We like to add quinoa when we cook our rice. Quinoa doesn’t have much flavor so they don’t alter the flavor of rice too much, and we love the texture they add.

This is a great time to use any scraps of vegetables that you might have in your fridge. We used green onion and a little red chili (finely minced). We saute them in a tiny bit of oil just to wilt.

You can use finely chopped some carrot, pepper, zucchini, or even broccoli would work great, too.

Mix rice with vegetables and cheese. We used Italian cheese mix, including Parmesan cheese. Any melt-able cheese will work.

Rolled them into golf ball size.

Coat with flour and egg…

..then roll them in Panko breadcrumbs.

Fry them in oil until golden brown.

One trick we use when we do deep-frying is that we tilt-over the pan to the side to make a deep pocket of oil. That way you don’t need to waste too much oil for deep frying. Yes, you can call us “the wise one!” 🙂

If we used mozzarella cheese, the rice balls would have that oooy-goooy melted cheese stretching out. But Italian cheese mix offers a good taste.

Bite into one. You will love the way it is or serve with warm marinara sauce. That would be divine! Hope you enjoy these rice balls!

It is the summer season again. For us having a gypsy-like life but without the tent to carry along, we are leaving again to look for another adventure in a country we've never been to.

In other words, we are moving again. Where? We will let you know when we arrive. Hopefully everything will arrive safely in one piece.

We were told that 1/2 of our belongings are in a random warehouse in Belgium, and the other 1/2 is in US. And our destination this time is not close to neither of the location. We just hope that all our possession comes in one piece without the missing pieces. When we moved to Malaysia last time, our sofa arrived safely but without the cushions, and nobody knew when/where they lost the cushions. Maybe they are still floating somewhere in the pacific ocean? Who knows? Ahhhh, the joy of moving!

Until we see you again in whole, have a great summer, our dears. We will keep up the postings with travel, but recipe posting might take some time.

• Yield: 4
• Prep: 10 minutes
• Cook: 20 minutes
• Total: 30 minutes

Ingredients

• 2 cup cooked short grain rice
• 1 1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese, or Italian cheese mix
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 tsp oil
• 3 green onion, finely chopped
• 1 red chili, seeded and finely minced
• salt and pepper, to season
• some flour, for coating
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 cup panko breadcrumbs
• 3/4 cup oil, for frying
• marinara sauce, for dipping, optional

Method

1. Heat 1 teaspoon oil in a skillet over medium heat and saute green onion and red chili for 30-60 seconds to wilt seasoning with salt.
2. In a mixing bowl combine rice, green onion and chili mixture, cheese. Mix well and from into small balls. Roll the rice balls in flour, egg and breadcrumbs.
3. Heat oil in s small pan over medium heat until hot. Deep fry the rice balls until the crust gets golden brown. Adjust the heat so the rice balls don't get brown too quickly. Serve hot as is or with warm marinara sauce.