A super addictive appetizer that everyone loves! Check out my ooey-gooey utterly delicious eggless fried cheese bites, aka fried mozzarella sticks. Here is my simple recipe with detailed step-wise pictures.
With the current pandemic situation, we couldn’t relish our favorite restaurant food like before. Not that we were eating out regularly before, but those not-so-regular visits also stopped.
What do you do when you crave for your favorite food, make them at home and enjoy! I have quite a few of our restaurant-favorite recipes coming soon on the blog. Stay tuned.
What’s the big deal about this fried cheese? Most of the major fast-food chains and some Italian restaurants serve this addictive fried cheese sticks with marinara. You can also find the frozen ones in many grocery stores.
I am not sure if it’s an Italian dish or American. Whatever cuisine it may be, it’s very delicious. It’s hard to find eggless cheese bites in the restaurants, and I always wanted to recreate it at home without eggs, and finally, I did it.
Guess what, making restaurant-style food at home is not that complicated, and in fact, you can customize it according to your dietary restrictions and make it even better like these eggless cheese bites.
We love bite-size snacks. A few days back, I posted stuffed mushrooms which doesn’t need much oil. Also, I have an air-fryer baby corn recipe with less oil. But this one is a deep-fried snack with cheese. For once in a while indulgence, it is perfectly fine, and it is homemade with love. Nothing can beat that.
It’s not only kiddos’ favorite. We all, including our parents, love it. Seriously folks what not to love in this – cheese bites coated with flour and panko and deep-fried. Typically mozzarella cheese is used, but you can use cheddar cheese also. Make sure to adjust the salt when using cheddar cheese.
Now without any further ado, here is my eggless cheese bites recipe. Please check the recipe notes for alternate ingredients and some tips.
Eggless Fried Cheese Bites Recipe with Detailed Step-Wise Pictures-
Cut the cheese sticks-
- I cut my single cheese stick into three equal parts. You can leave it as is or cut into two.
Prepare the flour batter-
- In a bowl, add the corn starch, all-purpose flour, salt, pepper, and onion powder. Mix it.
- Then add water little by little and prepare the batter. The batter should not be too thick or thin, so add water cautiously.
- Take the panko bread crumbs in another bowl.
Coat the cheese sticks with batter and fry-
- Heat the oil for frying.
- While the oil is getting hot, dip the cut cheese bites into the flour batter.
- Please make sure you dip it thoroughly and coat it with the batter. Now shake off the excess batter and immediately roll it over the panko breadcrumbs. Coat it evenly as well.
- Repeat the same process with the other cheese bites and keep them ready.
- Now slowly drop the breaded cheese bites into the oil and fry until they turn brown like below. The excess panko breadcrumbs might fall off in the oil, and that’s fine. Similarly, fry all the cheese bites.
- You can remove the excess breadcrumbs for the even look. But I love them. So I leave it as is.
- Serve warm with marinara sauce or ketchup or sauce of your choice.
Recipe Notes-
- For extra crispy cheese bites, you can double dip the cheese bites in the batter and then in the breadcrumbs. But I did not do it that way.
- After coating, you can refrigerate the breaded cheese bites. This helps the breadcrumbs to stick to the cheese. But I did not do this step.
- You can discard the leftover batter or use it to thicken the soups.
- You can make this with cheddar cheese sticks also. But reduce the salt or adjust it as per your taste.
- The batter measure that I have provided is on the higher side. You can double coat the cheese sticks with this measure. For a single coat, you can reduce the batter measure. You can use 2 to 2.5 tbsps of APF and corn starch.
- I used Italian style seasoned panko breadcrumbs. You can use plain panko or mix 1 to 2 tsps of dried Italian herbs to the plain panko breadcrumbs.
Other Appetizer/Snack Recipes from Blog Archives-
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📖 Recipe
Eggless Fried Cheese Bites | Fried Mozzarella Cheese
Equipment
- mixing bowls and frying pan
Ingredients
- 6 Mozzarella cheese sticks cut into bite-size pieces
- ¼ cup corn starch
- ¼ cup all-purpose flour
- ½ tsp salt or to taste
- ½ tsp ground pepper
- 1 tsp onion powder
- ¼ cup water or as required
- ½ cup panko bread crumbs
- 1 cup oil for frying
Instructions
Cut the cheese sticks-
- I cut my single cheese stick into three equal parts. You can leave it as is or cut into two.
Prepare the flour batter-
- In a bowl, add the corn starch, all-purpose flour, salt, pepper, and onion powder. Mix it.
- Then add water little by little and prepare the batter. The batter should not be too thick or thin, so add water cautiously.
Coat the cheese sticks with batter and fry-
- Heat the oil for frying.
- While the oil is getting hot, dip the cut cheese bites into the flour batter.
- Please make sure you dip it thoroughly and coat it with the batter. Now shake off the excess batter and immediately roll it over the panko breadcrumbs. Coat it evenly as well. Repeat the same process with the other cheese bites and keep them ready.
- Now slowly drop the breaded cheese bites into the oil and fry until they turn brown like below. The excess panko breadcrumbs might fall off in the oil, and that's fine. Similarly, fry all the cheese bites.
- You can remove the excess breadcrumbs for the even look. But I love them.
- Serve warm with marinara sauce or ketchup or sauce of your choice.
Notes
- For extra crispy cheese bites, you can double dip the cheese bites in the batter and then in the breadcrumbs. But I did not do it that way.
- After coating, you can refrigerate the breaded cheese bites. This helps the breadcrumbs to stick to the cheese. But I did not do this step.
- You can discard the leftover batter or use it to thicken the soups.
- The batter measure that I have provided is on the higher side. You can double coat the cheese sticks with this measure. For a single coat, you can reduce the batter measure. You can use 2 to 2.5 tbsps of APF and corn starch.
- I used Italian style seasoned panko breadcrumbs. You can use plain panko or mix 1 to 2 tsps of dried Italian herbs to the plain panko breadcrumbs.
Nutrition
I am not a nutritionist. The nutritional information is provided as a courtesy and is an estimate only. It varies depending upon the product types or brands.
Used this recipe
BUT
After the first coating I put the cheese in the freezer for 15mins then breaded again and back in the freezer until deep frying. So tasty!
Thanks for tip. I am sure readers would find it useful.
Delicious. I chose this recipe because I was out of eggs for the egg wash. This batter was perfect. I used a roll of a little bigger than bite size pre-sliced mozzarella. It was a hit with the family and me! I think I will always skip the egg wash now and just make this batter.
Thanks :-)
I am currently trying to use less meat in my food and looked for an eggless mozzarella stick recipe and yours popped up! Tastes amazing! Way better without the weird egg taste! I popped it into the air fryer for 375 for 5-6 minutes and it tasted divine! I was in a hurry so i used frozen cheese sticks in the batter so i could pop it into the air fryer immediately.
Thanks a lot and thanks for the air-fryer settings. I will definitely help others.
Super easy and was delicious!! Was a hit at home for Super Bowl!
Thanks a lot. :-)