Baked Vegan Mozzarella Sticks

Hello everyone! I decided to try to make baked mozzarella sticks this week, but the real inspiration for doing this was I had a dream that I made BBQ mozzarella sticks – which was probably inspired by me having made the General Tso's tofu – and I really wanted to try it out.

I sliced up a Follow Your Heart vegan mozzarella block, dunked the pieces in a mix of water and whole wheat flour, then breadcrumbs, and baked them for 10 minutes. I then dunked some in BBQ sauce but left most of them plain – in case it turned out to be a bad idea – and then put them all back in for another five minutes. Zach thought the sauce was a gross idea, so he just had the regular ones, dipping them in pasta sauce. I tried both, but I absolutely loved the BBQ ones. 

I made another batch of plain mozzarella sticks today, this time going with Zach's suggestion of brushing over a bit of melted Earth Balance before baking them another five minutes. They turned out well, but I used a thinner tray this time and several of the mozzarella sticks burst open with cheese. Whoops. All in all, Zach liked this version best.  

Here's Daisy checking out the mozzarella sticks today... 

In other news, for those of you who are interested, I made an author page for myself on Facebook this week.

Peace. :)

Mozzarella Sticks

Hello on the 14th day of the Vegan Month of Food! Today I made my first-ever vegan mozzarella sticks, and it was quite the adventure. I based my recipe mainly off the VeganZombie's, which I found through this blog post on Food With Heart. I also checked out two recipes here and here.

Mozzarella Sticks

 

Ingredients:

--1 block of Follow Your Heart Vegan Gourmet mozzarella

--seasoned breadcrumbs + 1/2 tsp pepper (I used Edward & Sons Italian Herbs organic breadcrumbs)*

--soy milk

--flour

--canola oil

*if you don't use seasoned breadcrumbs, you'll want to include garlic powder, oregano, and salt in addition to the pepper

Prepare three bowls, one with soy milk, another with flour, and the third with seasoned breadcrumbs and pepper. Cut the mozzarella block into cheese sticks (I got 16 "fingers" out of it, and then 8 of them I halved for mozzarella "bites"). Dunk a cheese stick in the soy milk, then in the flour, dunk back in the soy milk, and then into the breadcrumbs, making sure to cover the cheese stick as thoroughly as possible. Set aside on plate. Repeat process for the remaining cheese sticks. Pour a couple inches of canola oil into a cooking pot and heat it up; drop a clump of breadcrumbs in to test when it is ready to fry. Using tongs, add three cheese sticks to the pot; remove when they have turned golden brown. Set on paper towels to absorb the excess grease. Repeat until all the cheese sticks have been fried. Serve the mozzarella sticks with sauce and enjoy!

Notes & thoughts: Near the end of the batch, I had some difficulty getting the cheese sticks fully coated, especially when the breadcrumbs started clumping together in the bowl. They looked and tasted pretty good, though in most of them, the cheese didn't melt much, so that was kinda disappointing. (Maybe I didn't let them fry long enough? But the ones I had in longest ended up with the cheese starting to melt out. I guess I just need to determine the perfect length of time to have them fry. More experimentation!) 

The next time I make these, I think I will add a bit more salt (the salt in the seasoned breadcrumbs wasn't enough for my tastes) and maybe try using a more melty cheese like Daiya. Overall, I'll call it a success, though, and I have plenty of leftovers to enjoy in the next couple days.

Tomorrow, be sure to check back in for the start of Nostalgia Week, which I will be kicking off by making my first-ever tofu scramble (vegan "scrambled eggs"). There will also be shiitake bacon. :)

Here is a snuggly sleepy Mystery saying goodnight.

Peace. :)