So... you can pretty much waffle anything.

Scrambled eggs? YUP.

Muffin batter? YUP.

Bananas? PROBABLY!

Hot dogs? Ew, but yeah I guess so.

Sticky Rice Balls? YAAAS, ABSOLUTELY.

If you guys follow us on Instagram, you know we're always just wandering around New Orleans and gorging ourselves on pretty much everything the city has to offer. Last Sunday we went to dim sum with a friend and ate these amazing little crispy sticky rice patties loaded with scallions. Holy shit. Crispy gooey sweet sticky rice magic packed into little hockey puck shaped flavor dumpsters - like - woah woah woah back up the roll cart give me more rice patties ASAP.

I wanted to recreate it but in the easiest way possible. Enter: the waffle iron.

To be honest you can also very easily make these with a panini press or the George Foreman Grill your mother-in-law gave you for Christmas in 1999, but the waffle iron marks make these SO CUTE. This recipe is probably too easy to actually post on a blog, but sometimes easy is good and too easy is even better, so, here's how it goes: make sticky rice, mix it with salt and pepper, form little balls with your hands or a melon baller, butter up a waffle iron, sizzle-smoosh-sit, and you've got sticky rice waffle bites. Addictive little waffle-shaped pieces of love waiting to be dipped into a sauce such as the sesame ginger dipping sauce recipe below OR topped with smothered red beans for a whole new kind of red beans and rice OR loaded with Korean pulled pork and eaten like sliders. Check out the full recipe for the waffles and the dipping sauce below, and as always, have a good week, cuties! Oh and let me know what kind of weird stuff you'd like to waffle!

Sticky Rice Waffle Bites + Sesame Ginger Dipping Sauce

makes 9 - 12 mini waffle bites

for the waffle bites

3 cups cooked sticky rice or short grain rice
1/4 stick unsalted butter (for greasing the waffle iron - you may not need to use all of it)
salt and pepper to taste

for the dipping sauce

3 T soy sauce
1.5 T rice wine vinegar
.5 T sesame oil or toasted sesame oil
1 t fish sauce
1 t red pepper flakes
1 t minced ginger
1 t minced garlic
1 t sesame seeds
1/4 cup chopped scallions

Prepare the dipping sauce by whisking together all ingredients. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit in the fridge while you prepare the waffle bites.
To keep the waffle bites warm, preheat your oven to the lowest setting and line a casserole dish with aluminum foil, you can place each waffle bite into this container and leave it in the oven to keep it warm while you make the rest of the waffle bites.
Form the sticky rice into balls the size of a golf ball. I found a melon baller extremely helpful for creating evenly-sized rice bites, but your fingers will do just fine. Pro tip: wet you fingers just slightly before forming each ball, as this helps keep the rice from becoming a sticky mess on your fingers. I'd recommend forming all of the balls before you begin pressing them in the waffle iron.
Set your waffle iron to the highest setting and place a small dab (just a tiny bit!) of butter on the center of the hot iron, followed by one rice ball. Close the lid (don't smash it down as this will flatten it too much, rather let it just sit on top the rice ball) and let cook for about 3 minutes, until hard and crispy on the outside. I actually had to let it go a little past three minutes, but this will vary depending on your iron. You want the outside to be golden brown and crispy, but the inside to be gooey. Once this stage is reached, remove the rice waffles from the iron and place them in your casserole dish.
Serve the rice waffle bites warm with the dipping sauce on the side.