Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Black Bean Burgers



There's been a lot of indulgent recipes featured here lately. It's time to lighten things up a bit. For lunch today: Black Bean Burgers on homemade buns. These burgers are easy to put together and impressive enough for the most devout carnivores in your life.




Black Bean Burgers
serves 12


Ingredients:
  • 1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
  • 2 heaping cups cooked brown rice
  • 1/4 cup flour
  • 1 beaten egg
  • 3 green onions, sliced
  • 6 slices of jalapeno peppers
  • 3 Tbsp salsa, as hot as you like it
  • 1/4 cup almonds, ground finely
  • salt & pepper to taste
  • buns, lettuce, and sour cream or mayo to serve
How it's Done:
  1. In the bowl of your food processor, combine all ingredients except buns, lettuce, and sour cream. Process until thoroughly combined but still a little lumpy.
  2. Shape into patties. Drop onto a skillet (preheated to medium-high and sprayed with non-stick spray) and cook five minutes on the first side, and three or four on the reverse side.
  3. Serve on buns with lettuce and sour cream.




***Recipe note: As you are processing your ingredients, remember not to over-process. You want some chunkiness left in the burger. Your mash should be pretty thick. Remember paste in elementary school? It should be that thick. If it feels like cooked oatmeal, you'll want to thicken it up a bit. You can achieve this by adding more flour, or some bread crumbs, or some rolled oats. Be sure to cook your rice until dry. I've made this with freshly cooked rice as well as leftover rice, and I don't recall there being much difference. Just keep it thick, using whatever ingredient you have on hand. The finished burgers have the mouth feel of a traditional meatless burger. If they're too wet, you'll have some tasty "sloppy joe" -- fine if you want a sloppy joe, but not if you're looking for the burger pictured above. :)

12 comments:

Andrea the Kitchen Witch said...

Yum Michelle!! I've never made meatless burgers but this will change very soon!! They look fantastic and I love the mexican flavors that you have going on in there. Can't wait to try them myself!

tunamarie said...

This looks absolutely delectable.

Windthicket Fables said...

As always, that looks deVINE.

COme on over to my blog real quick- I nominated you for an award!!

Lisa said...

That looks sooo good!! I hope I can talk my husband into trying them:)

Lisa said...

Yum, Yum, Yum! Love the picture of all the ingredients in the bowl, pretty colors! I just stocked up on a bunch of dried beans, and I've wanted to give something like this a try. Thanks for sharing.

Lisa @ joyincooking.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

I am going to make this tomorrow before I have to go to work. It looks great! Much better than those frozen things in the freezer section!

Kathy said...

Looks good! I would like to try it w/out the peppers.

Lee Lee said...

I just made this tonight. It was really good, except that it was way too wet. The "dough" had to be spooned onto the pan like pancakes, then mashed around and cooked, otherwise it was all sloppy in the middle. I'm really not sure where I went wrong! :(

Michelle said...

Oh no! I'm sorry you had a hard time with it! The only thing I can think that might have gone wrong was not draining the beans -- the only "liquid" ingredient is the egg. Did you rinse and drain the beans? And did you use the food processor to combine? You didn't forget the flour, did you? The flour and almonds bulk up the burger patties. These are so delicious. I'm sorry they didn't turn out right for you. :(

Lee Lee said...

I rinsed and drained the beans. And I didn't forget the flour and almonds. The only thing I could think of is that I added the 2 cups of rice right after it was done cooking. Should the rice have been cooked a few hours earlier and left to cool? I know you're big on using leftovers.. was the rice a leftover?

Michelle said...

Hmm... I've made it both ways. I'm going to add a note in the recipe to be more specific about the texture, as well as some suggestions on how to doctor it if need be. Thank you for sharing your experience with me -- I hope you will try it again with better results.

Samara Link said...

I made these earlier in the week and loved them. Just as I seem to love most everything I make from your blog. The flavor was excellent and the texture was, too. I've been posting everything I've made from your blog on mine. This is the first time I wrote out the whole recipe. I thought it might be perfect timing for the upcoming weekend. Everything else, I've shared a photo of my version of the recipe and linked people to your blog. Just wanted to let you know that I'm giving you credit for all your wonderful ideas! I'm curious though, where do your ideas and recipes come from? If you ever print a cook book, you can sign me up for a copy, for sure. I'm a big fan.

http://linkadventure.blogspot.com/2010/07/vegetarian-black-bean-burgers.html

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