Tasty Tuesdays - #13 - Buffalo White Bean Quinoa Bites

{Recipe via}

There are a lot of versions of this recipe on Pinterest, but most are buffalo chicken.  Being a vegetarian, I was drawn to this version that incorporated white beans as a substitute for the meat.  She uses a Greek yogurt sauce for dipping, but you can also go traditional with a blue cheese sauce as well.

Ingredients: 
1 C cooked quinoa (approx ½ C quinoa cooked in 1 C water) 
1 C small white beans, drained and rinsed 
1 clove garlic, minced 
2 green onions, finely chopped 
1 stalk celery, finely chopped 
1 tbsp flour 
⅓ C Buffalo sauce 
salt and pepper to taste 
¼ – ½ C mozzarella cheese
 
Directions:
1 - Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease a mini muffin tin generously and set aside. 
2 - Stir together the cooked quinoa, white beans, garlic, green onions, celery, flour and buffalo sauce.  Add salt and pepper to taste. 
3 - Add a spoonful of the buffalo quinoa to each mini muffin cup and press down firmly. 
4 - Place in the oven and bake 20-25 minutes, adding the cheese if desired in the last 5 minutes and then baking just until bubbly.  Remove and cool 3-4 minutes before removing. 
5 - For easy removal from the baking tray place a cooling rack on top of the mini muffin tin and simply flip them oven together, the bites should fall out.  Simply flip them over and serve.

Notes:

These bites may be slightly crumbly.  Be sure to press them down well before baking them and if you’re not making these vegan consider stirring an egg into the quinoa mixture before baking to help them hold together better.