First, thank you guys SO much for all the support on yesterday’s post. It definitely was a little scary to press publish on that one since money is such a personal and touchy subject, but I almost felt like a fraud NOT addressing it since I talk so much about grocery budgeting and being a bargain shopper on here. I got a LOT of questions about budgeting, how I paid/am paying off my cards, and ways to save money through Twitter, the comments, and email, so I’m planning on doing a follow up post, probably next week. If you have any specific questions, feel free to reach out and I’m happy to share my experiences with you.

Moving along… a new recipe! A good one, too.

I’m almost embarrassed to admit that this recipe is inspired by Ruby Tuesday’s. When Wil and I were driving down to visit his mom this weekend, we pulled off the highway to get gas in the middle of nowhere and the options were Ruby Tuesday’s or Waffle House, so you can guess which one we went with. I rarely if ever eat at chains, but Ruby Tuesdays is one of my favorites because they have a great salad bar. There was a lunch special for zucchini sliders (with the salad bar) and I was shocked with how delicious they were! Ruby’s version had red pepper, zucchini, and feta, but they were a little greasy for my taste, so I stole their idea and made a healthified version for dinner last night, and wow. So good.

Zucchini Burgers

This entire recipe as is has 10pts+ and you can find the printable version here. They can be divided however you want to into patties, but I recommend making at least 5 so they are thin enough to cook through because of the raw egg.  These zucchini burgers are super flavorful, moist, and delicious!

To start, here is some of what you need:

• 1 carrot (not 2)
• 1 large zucchini
• 1 egg (not 2)
• 1/3 cup chopped onion
• 1 tsp salt
• ground pepper to taste
• 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/4 cup crumbled feta

The first step is to grate up the zucchini. I used the large part of a grater to do this, but you can do it in a food processor also.

Now, add 1 tsp of salt to the zucchini mix and let it sit for about 5 minutes. Go ahead and prep your other veggies while you’re letting it sit – chop up the onion finely and grate the carrot.

Once that is done sitting, the next step is to get the excess moisture out of the zucchini. I used cheese cloth for the first time last night, but you can also do it with paper towels. Place the zucchini on a piece of cheese cloth:

Pull the cheese cloth around the zucchini:

And SQUEEZE. There will be tons of liquid coming out, so do it over and bowl and keep squeezing until liquid is no longer draining out.

I felt like that picture didn’t do it justice, so I measured it:

Almost 2/3 a cup! Crazy. Now put the drained zucchini into a large bowl.

And add in 1 grated carrot, 1/3 cup diced onion (the smaller the better!), 1 egg, and black pepper.

Stir to combine the mixture, making sure everything is spread around evenly.

Add in 1/4 cup whole wheat flour.

And stir again until the flour is well spread throughout the mixture.

Last step, add in 1/4 cup crumbled feta cheese.

And gently fold the feta into the mixture until its spread relatively evenly throughout.

Now, time to cook! Heat up a large skillet, and spray with nonstick spray. You can also cook these in oil, but I just went with spray and it worked great. Using your hands or an ice cream scoop or spoon, place rounds of the mixture on the heated pan. The mixture will be wet – don’t worry! It’ll hold together just fine.

Cook about 4-5 minutes, and the flip!

Cook another 4-5 minutes, and then remove from the heat.

I think my lighting was messed up because these look a little burnt in the photos, but they really were perfect!

They are very moist, flavorful, and stayed together really well. The texture is crunchy on the outside, and soft on he inside. They are loaded with veggies, packed with flavor, and absolutely delicious. They taste quite indulgent, but are super healthy – my favorite combo!

You can serve these patties on hamburger buns, english muffins, pita, over salad, or eat them straight up like I did. You can also experiment with your mix ins for the zucchini burgers. Rubys version had red pepper (I’m not sure if they were roasted or raw) which I wolud have added if I had some on hand, but you can also change up the other veggies in here based on what you have. Enjoy!

Do you eat at chain restaurants? What’s your favorite one? After I wrote this I remembered that though I love the salad bar at Ruby Tuesday’s, The Cheesecake Factory is actually my favorite! Really hard to eat there healthy but the food is just so good.. and the cheesecake. I also love Subway and Chipotle, but I don’t know if those count.