These IKEA-style Veggie Balls are made with chickpeas, carrots, broccoli, onion, garlic, red bell pepper, corn, and peas. They are baked in the oven and are easy to make. Packed with nutrients and flavor!

These IKEA-inspired veggie balls are packed with nine different vegetables! They are flavorful, healthy, and easy to make. Although they are not gluten-free per recipe, you can easily make them gluten-free if you use gf breadcrumbs.

These vegetable balls are highly versatile, not only can you use them in lots of dishes (served with mashed potatoes, rice, couscous, in salads, wraps, etc.) you can also mix and match the veggies as you want/need.

The trick to making veggie balls, that hold their shape well is to prepare the veggies accordingly. I’m dividing the veggies into two groups: The To-Cook-Veggies and the No-Cook-Veggies. If you don’t pre-cook the vegetables that will lose water and soften when heated, then they will do that when they are formed in a ball, which results in mushy, deformed, too-soft balls. So we are going to chop up the broccoli, carrots, bell pepper, onions, and garlic and cook them in a pan before mixing them with the other veggies (chickpeas, corn, and peas).

Then you only need to add spices and breadcrumbs, form the balls, bake them and you’re done. Easy!

If you’re looking for ‘meatier vegan meatballs’ check out my TVP meatballs.

How to make Veggie Balls

As always you will find the whole recipe in the box below, but I want to give you an overview of the key ingredients and the process with step-by-step photos first.

The Ingredients & Possible Substitutions

You will need:

red onion
yellow onion
garlic
carrots
red bell pepper
broccoli
chickpeas
fresh parsley
corn
peas
spices: salt, caraway, dried thyme, paprika powder

If you don’t have one thing or the other, don’t stress about it. The most important things to make the mixture stick together are chickpeas and breadcrumbs, but everything else is versatile.

The basic steps

red pepper, carrots, onions, garlic, broccoli in food processor — Step 1: Use a food processor to chop onions, garlic, broccoli, red bell pepper, and carrots.

chopped veggies in food processor — Step 1: Use a food processor to chop onions, garlic, broccoli, red bell pepper, and carrots.

chopped veggies in pan — Step 2: Cook the chopped veggies in a pan until softened.

parsley, chickpeas, corn and peas in food processor — Step 3: Now chop in the food processor chickpeas, parsley, corn, and peas.

veggie ball mixture in food processor — Step 3: Now chop in the food processor chickpeas, parsley, corn, and peas.

veggie balls mixture and breadcrumbs — Step 4: Add the cooked veggies, spices, and breadcrumbs to the chickpea mixture and chop until everything is well combined.

Ikea-Style Veggie Balls before baking — Step 5: Use a small ice cream scoop to form evenly-sized little balls and place them on a baking tray lined with parchment paper.

Ikea-Style Veggie Balls on a baking tray — Step 6: Bake them for 25 minutes at 350°F/180°C.

How to serve these IKEA-Style Veggie Balls

You can serve them with:

Vegan Mashed Potatoes with onions and garlic
Golden Cauliflower Rice
Simple Onion Couscous
Oven Baked Potato Slices
or use them as a wrap filling
with a vegan yogurt dip

How to store left-over veggie balls

You can keep them in the fridge for 2-3 days and reheat them in the pan or microwave.

Or you can freeze them for months, and reheat them in the oven, pan, or microwave.

Love it? Rate it!

I hope you enjoy these IKEA-Style Veggie Balls as much as I do! Let me know if you give them a try!

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Cheers, Bianca

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4.50 from 8 votes (8 ratings without comment)

Sue

Saturday 15th of June 2024

Liked the sound of these and I think that they are okay, although rather bland. As with nearly all new-to-me recipes, I slavishly followed it to the letter with a couple of exceptions. Very sloppy mixture. I doubled the size of the balls and therefore got half the amount. Too wet to hold their shape in the oven, but this was partly to do with the increased size. Took almost 50 mins to crisp up. Last 20 mins I upped the oven temperature to 200°C. Would I make them again? Probably not, but if I did I would most definitely double or almost double the spicing, and certainly at least double the quantity breadcrumbs. I did hold a couple back to try deep frying them, but that was disastrous. They disintegrated in the fryer! Just a general query, how big is a carrot??!!! Various US sites online suggest around 60g. My carrots are roughly 180g each. Now that's a big difference. Same with onions etc.

Ana

Wednesday 17th of July 2024

@Sue, just made these, I also had to increase the amount of bread crumbs, also added a ton more spices, salt and pepper. They are in the oven now so I’ll see about the taste. The nice thing about this recipe is that you can play around with it and adjust to your taste buds.

Stephanie

Monday 11th of April 2016

This looks delicious! I cannot wait to try these

Bianca

Thank you, Stephanie! I hope you'll like it ^.^

Bonnie

Tuesday 20th of January 2015

I love the idea of the veggie balls, and what a beautiful flatbread!

bianca