Black Bean Veggie Burgers

I’m used to eating veggie burgers, I’ve done so for many years. However, I’ve never tried to make my own. I’ve always bought the packaged frozen burgers and ate them at my leisure. It wasn’t until I saw the recipe on allrecipes.com that I saw how easy it was to make these.

After I made it and took a bite, I thought to myself, I like this, but I’m not sure if Gary will. To my surprise, he liked it also! When I told him I was making this for dinner, of course he responded, “What, no meat?”.

I had a few alterations to this recipe. Instead of onion, I used dried shallots because I had none on hand. I used the whole bell pepper, added a carrot, added celery, used cayenne instead of hot sauce, and added extra panko. It came out wonderful. We don’t normally eat spicy food, and this wasn’t spicy at all. It had the nice kick to it without it being overpowering.

Black Bean Veggie Burgers
Adapted from: allrecipes.com

Ingredients:
1 (16 ounce) can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 green bell pepper, cut into 2 inch pieces
1 carrot, peeled and cut into pieces
2 celery stalks, cut into pieces
1/2 onion, cut into wedges (I didn’t have on hand. I used 1 tsp dried shallots)
3 cloves garlic, peeled
1 egg
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 tablespoon cumin
1/2  teaspoon cayenne pepper 
1 cup bread crumbs (I used panko)

Directions:
1. If grilling, preheat an outdoor grill for high heat, and lightly oil a sheet of aluminum foil. If baking, preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C), and lightly oil a baking sheet.

2. In a food processor, grind up the black beans until thick and pasty. Transfer to a medium bowl.

3. Add the pepper, carrot, celery, onion and garlic into the processor and finely chop. Add the beans back in and pulse until combined. Transfer back to the bowl.

4. In a small bowl, stir together egg, chili powder, cumin, and cayenne pepper.

5. Stir the egg mixture into the mashed beans. Mix in bread crumbs until the mixture is sticky and holds together. Divide mixture into four patties.

6. If grilling, place patties on foil, and grill about 8 minutes on each side. If baking, place patties on baking sheet, and bake about 10 minutes on each side.
(I grilled this on my George Foreman grill for 5 minutes.)

Serve as you would beef burgers with all the fixings. We’re sort of minimalists with our burgers (meaning we didn’t have anything). We ate them on whole wheat pita bread with ketchup.