These sweet potato, lentil and cheddar croquettes are a great food for baby led weaning, as well as a good way of sneaking in some veggies to fussy children.
Sweet Potato, Lentil and Cheddar Croquettes
Makes approx 18 mini croquettes
Ingredients
- 1 medium sweet potato, peeled and chopped
- 1/2 cup of red lentils
- 40g cheddar
- 1 small carrot, grated
- 1/4 cup of frozen peas
- 1 egg, beaten
- paprika
- black pepper
- olive oil (in misto sprayer)
Directions
Add the lentils to a saucepan and cover with 1 cup of water. Bring to the boil and simmer until softened, turn off heat and then leave covered with lid until all liquid is absorbed. (this is important or the mixture will be too wet)
Steam the sweet potatoes until softened
Add the sweet potato and lentils to a large bowl, set aside and allow to cool.
Once cooled, preheat oven to 200c of 400f
Add the carrot, cheddar and egg to the sweet potato and lentils and mix thoroughly.
Season with a little paprika and black pepper.
Stir in the frozen peas.
Form into mini sized croquettes.
Place on a baking tray sprayed with olive oil and also spray over the top of the croquettes.
Bake in the oven until golden (approx 30 mins). (turn over on the tray a couple of times through cooking time).
These can be varied by using different cheese or adding different vegetables or seasoning.
If serving for older kids, you can add a little salt.
how long is the baking time? they sound perfect for my littke guys.
I assume that these freeze up well. Both Baby Bug and Big Brother love sweet potato, and these sound like better snacks/lunches then some of the junk that can end up in my market basket.
yes these freeze fine 🙂
Hi I made these today but as I didn’t have lentils I substituted it with a few tablespoons of flour and I have to say they were yummy!! My blw little one enjoyed !! Thanks
glad your little one enjoyed them
OH MAN, i just added all of these ingredients to my shopping list. YUMMY!
I commented on these a few days ago saying that I thought they were pasty and tasteless but now don’t see my comment anymore. I hope you don’t only keep the positive reviews!
Hi. These look so good that I decided to make them. Unfortunately, it was so runny that I couldn’t make them into croquettes. Not sure where I went wrong. How much would the weight of the medium sweet potato be approximately? Oh, I did bake the sweet potato instead of steaming it…
How much cheese are you using 40g=?
Made these today. They sort of fell apart so they are little bites now. Can’t wait to see if my guy likes them.
Love these! When I made them for the wee man, I ended up eating half myself 🙂 We also do a version that uses butternut squash and lentils, it’s his favourite: https://www.littlegourmetbaby.com/baby-led-weaning-recipe-blog/2016/12/6/savoury-lentil-cupcakes-with-butternut-squash
I like your recipe, I made it but I added a few things to make it tasty: scallions/ cilantro/ cumin/ adobo/ salt/ black pepper/ paprika and it was awesome!
Are the peas still frozen when added to the mixture? Thanks! Can’t wait to try 🙂
Hi there, yes the peas were added frozen, although probably lightly defrosted by the time they got in the oven 🙂
I’ve just popped some of these in the oven although I’m a little dubious about how they’ll turn out as the mixture was rather sloppy after adding the egg. Fingers crossed!
Hi Michelle, it sounds like the lentils were not cooked enough to absorb the liquid, and I realize that wasn’t very clear in my write up, so have edited to reflect that. Hope it didn’t affect them too much for you.
Good idea, I wanted these to work as they’d be a good source of iron for my little guy but they were fairly tasteless and there was no way they were going to form into croquettes- the batter was far too gooey/runny! I added baking powder and baking soda and salvaged them by turning them into pancakes and adding curry powder for flavor.
It sounds like the lentils were not allowed to absorb enough of the liquid when cooking, which would result in the mixture being too wet. My kids loved these when baby led weaning and they were also tested out on a baby group at the time before adding the recipe to my blog, so I was sad to hear they didn’t work out for you. I omit salt, because young babies should be limited on their salt intake, but if serving for adults or older kids, then you can add some for some more seasoning. The lentils being too wet from not absorbing all the liquid would of affected the flavour too.(I have made an edit to the recipe to make that more clear). Curry powder was a great idea for an addition. Some cilantro (coriander) would pair well with that also.