Homemade Veggie Burgers
If you're not eating meat, but still crave something meaty and familiar, then a good veggie burger can be your best bet. A good veggie burger doesn't come cheap and after seeing how much goes into them, you may think it's worth buying the thing instead. But for those who like to customize their own burgers and control what's going in since some veggie patties can contain lots of fillers, I have the recipe for you.
When I typed veggies burgers on the search bar, loads of recipes came up. I read every recipe from ones in the New York Times to lesser known recipes from vegetarian bloggers. I think I've managed to combine the best of all worlds in this recipe.
One of the biggest issues in veggie burgers is that there is too much water and it falls apart, so I made sure to bake or cook off some of the liquid for all the ingredients before adding it together.
Really, making a good veggie burger means that you prepare all the ingredients separately and make sure they are at the state you want before combining it all together. For example, by the end, most things need to have been baked or ground up prior to being mixed by hand. I guess it may be because I don't have a big enough food processor, but mixing everything in smaller batches separately also ensures that you don't over-process and get a patty that is way too ground up. I personally like to see bits and pieces of vegetable in my patty. I like texture and frankly, it's just a nicer mouth feel when not everything is completely ground up.
The No Meat Athlete has a burger recipe based on ratios that I found was really easy to follow. It was basically 1 can of beans to about 2 cups of vegetables and you can put in any vegetables you want. You should add in fillers like brown rice to give the burger more bite because ground up vegetables and beans can all taste rather soft. For me, I kept the spices and flavors to a minimal. This veggie burger recipe tastes fresh with the lemon juice and basil, but if you want something more spicy or barbeque-y, simply add in some paprika or barbeque sauce. I just wanted to give people a very basic and fresh tasting burger. There aren't really any allergens I can think of in this either so anyone can have it. I recommend my green pea hummus when considering a condiment for your burger.
Last thing is, I probably made triple the amount of most recipes I read online because I wanted to make a lot of these guys and freeze it. If you have a food processor, which you definitely should if you are making these, then the process is a bit simpler. But still, it's putting together a lot of ingredients, and I would rather do this once and get 15 to 20 burgers out of it then having to do it over and over again.
Veggie Burger Recipe
(makes about 15 burgers)
- 2 cans garbanzo beans, drained
- 1 can red kidney beans, drained
- 1 onion, chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 cups mushrooms, chopped into fine pieces
- 2 cups carrots, julienned
- 2 cups zucchini, julienned
- 1 cup brown rice, cooked
- 2 teaspoon cumin
- 1/2 bunch basil, roughly chopped
- 1 lemon, juiced
- salt to taste
- 1 cup rice flour, for coating
Directions
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Drain the garbanzo and kidney beans and set aside.
- In a food processor, cut the carrots and zucchini into a fine julienne. Place them onto a sheet pan lined with parchment and bake for about 20 minutes until some of the moisture has been removed.
- While the vegetables are baking, using the same food processor, finely chop the mushrooms, onion and garlic.
- In a pan on medium high heat, cook the mushrooms, onions and garlic for about 6-7 minutes until the onions have softened and the mushrooms release some of its juices.
- Puree the garbanzo and kidney beans until a smooth or desired consistency is reached.
- In a large bowl using a wooden spoon, mix the vegetables, mushroom mixture, pureed beans, rice, cumin, lemon juice and chopped basil until combined. Add in salt to taste.
- Place rice flour in a shallow dish.
- Using a scoop for consistency, scoop vegetable mixture into the rice flour and coat. Then press gently to form a patty on a sheet pan lined with parchment. Burgers can be frozen at this time or cooked.