Avocado, Lime & Corn Fritters

Pop to a café out my way and there’s a sure chance you’ll spy corn fritters on the brunch menu. Made with simple ingredients – corn fried in batter – they’re delicious and always hit the right spot👌.

With a million and one recipes for classic corn fritters on the internet, these are a bit different. They (untraditionally) feature hunks of avocado, coriander (aka cilantro USA friends) and lime zest – all great pairings with corn💃.

They also have half the corn blended into the fritter base, with the remaining whole kernels stirred through. This infuses a yummy corn flavour throughout – think creamed corn fritter meets whole corn kernel fritter.

As a nutritionist, I’m all about eating a diverse plant-forward diet. As a vegetarian-friendly meal, these corn fritters feature five different types of produce! Your good gut bugs will be stoked – a healthy microbiota community is heavily dependent on diet diversity (1).

Kitchen Tips

To optimise your kitchen flow, here are some tried and tested tips:

• Cut avocado into small chunks. Larger pieces may break the fritter apart as the batter has to try bind around this. Half centimetre cubes work well!
• Get a fry pan warming up over a medium heat as you combine the last of your ingredients. Once the batter hits the pan it’ll start cooking with the heat searing a crust to help hold it together.
• Flatten and shape with a spoon. Once you dollop your mixture into the pan, flatten and shape best into a round circle with the back of a spoon.
• Fry until gloriously golden – but don’t rush it! These fritters require around 5 minutes over a medium heat each side. This creates a nice golden crust, while cooking them right through. If your heat is too high they’ll crisp nice on the outside, but remain soft and gooey on the inside – no thank you! See the bottom of the recipe for troubleshooting if this happens.
• Use a fish slice or metal spatula to flip fritters. Being thin and flexible, they’re ideal for easily sliding between your fritter and pan. No tongs here!

Serving Suggestions

These fritters make for a great Sunday brunch, easy peasy summer dinner, or yummy party appetisers (just fry them iddy biddy bite-size!).

They’re delicious plated with a leafy green salad, topped with grilled bacon or a hunk of smoked salmon, and a big dollop of Greek yoghurt.

They’re pretty irresistible hot off the pan and tend to go a bit soggy when sitting around for a while – so fry right before you intend to eat!

Nutrition Q&A

Here are commonly asked nutrition questions about the star of this fritter show – avocado!

• Is avocado a fruit? By botanical classification, yes! While not sweet like other fruit, it falls under the definition of a fruit aka the “fleshy product of a tree or plant that contains a seed and can be eaten as a food” (1).
• Is avocado rich in fat? It can be weird to think of fruit as rich in fat, but avocado is just that. While they’re botanically a fruit, they’re nutritionally considered a fat source – over 75% of their calorie content in fact! (2). This is one of the reasons why avocados are so incredibly versatile in the kitchen – their creaminess makes them an ace contender for creamy salad dressing bases and even desserts like this vegan chocolate mousse!
• What type of fat is in an avocado? Avocados largely contain monounsaturated fat, along with a small amount of saturated and polyunsaturated fat. Most of that monounsaturated fat is a type called oleic acid, the same fatty acid found in olive oil – this type of fat is considered very healthy! (3)(4)

Looking for other appetiser ideas? Try these mini eggplant pizzas!🍆