It’s time to redress the excesses of the past few weeks with some clean eating! I find most veggie burgers disappointing; they either lack texture or lack taste, and you can’t fake it by adding barbecue sauce to the mix. Here’s a veggie burger that I can get on board with – the trick comes from SeriousEats.com (thank you!): they roast the black beans in the oven before assembling the burger. This takes the moisture (and hence the mushiness) out of the burger. I added toasted and ground mushrooms, and left the chilis and adobos behind as a matter of personal taste. Love them on a tostada or taco, but not so much on a cheeseburger.
My husband, who will do a lot of things for me, will not eat a veggie burger – until now. He wants all the flavor, texture and firmness of beef, and he wants it to taste exactly like a burger from Shake Shack. This is a pretty good, no-guilt approximation. I hope you’ll give it a try.
You can make these and freeze them, to save time later.
Prep time: 30 minutes
Serves: 4
Ingredients
- 2 15-ounce cans of seasoned black beans
- ½ cup feta cheese, crumbled
- 10 mushroom caps, sliced and roasted until dry
- 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 1 cup onion, finely chopped
- 2 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1 cup roasted cashews
- 2 eggs
- 2 tablespoons mayonnaise
- ¾ cup panko breadcrumbs
- salt and pepper to taste
- cheddar cheese slices
- sesame seed buns
- butter for spreading on the insides of the buns
- 1 tablespoon of butter for buns
- sweet pickles, purple onion, iceberg lettuce and other condiments you like
Directions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- In a baking sheet, spread drained beans on a foil liner.
- Roast about 20 minutes until beans are split open.
- Remove from oven and allow to cool.
- While beans are roasting, heat 2 tablespoons of oil to medium high and cook onion until soft.
- Add garlic and cook another few minutes.
- Put cashews in a small frying pan at medium heat and roast until they become fragrant – 5-7 minutes.
- Put sliced mushroom caps into a 350 degree oven and roast to dry them out – about ten minutes.
- Process cashews in a good processor until chopped, then add mushroom and process until both are well ground. Add cashews, mushrooms, breadcrumbs, eggs, and mayonnaise to onion and garlic mixture.
- Put beans and feta cheese in food processor and pulse briefly until they are very roughly chopped.
- Transfer to cashew/mushroom/onion mixture and form into patties.
- Wrap individually and freeze, or if cooking immediately, heat remaining vegetable oil in a large frying pan.
- Cook on low heat, turning only once – allowing 3-4 minutes per side.
- Add cheese for melting. While cheese is melting, spread butter lightly on insides of buns and toast in a large frying pan at medium heat.
- Assemble burger using all your favorite condiments and serve.
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