The Whole Shebang Black Bean Burgers
Vegan burgers made with a mix of black beans, sweet potato, rice and a few other bits and pieces – I love these. I’m calling them the whole shebang black bean burgers because they’re kind of like a complete meal within themselves.
How? Because rice and beans together form a complete protein. And with all the other stuff in these black bean burgers they’re packed full of other nutrients and fibre like a full meal, sort of? Even better, they taste great. Especially in a toasted bun with bbq sauce and guacamole or mayonnaise. Mm…
And I can use this recipe for leftovers for the black bean soup. I can’t tell you how ridiculously pleased I am about this. The two vegan meals that I make most often are the Tomato and Puy Lentil Soup and the Black Bean Soup. I use leftovers of the puy lentil soup to make a vegetarian shepherd’s pie. I love it.
So where did I get the recipe?
The recipe that inspired this one was Food52’s Black Bean and Corn Burger. But I didn’t have any tinned corn – and also I forgot to check the recipe while I was making this so it deviates quite a bit from the original.
I baked the sweet potato like I bake white potatoes – stabbing it several times and leaving to bake in a hot oven for an hour or so. I think the stabbing bit is unnecessary for the sweet potato. Also not a good idea because it drips hot sugary syrup everywhere this way.
I decided to add in some cooked rice to bulk up the recipe. Luckily I didn’t add all the cooked rice. Rather than roughly mashing the ingredients together I used the food mixer. The result was a little too mushy-mashy. But if you add more cooked rice to the mix you get a much better texture.
Ingredients
- 2 small mild onions, chopped finely or minced in a mixer
- 4 garlic cloves, crushed to a paste or finely grated
- 2 inches root ginger, peeled and finely grated
- 2 tins black beans, rinsed and drained
- 1 large sweet potato, baked, peeled and roughly chopped
- 250g cooked brown rice
- 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
- 1/2 teaspoon sweet paprika
- 1/4 teaspoon ground coriander
- pinch mustard flour
- salt
- pepper
- olive oil
- polenta or oatmeal
Instructions
- Heat a little olive oil in a frying pan. Sprinkle over some salt. Add the minced onion and stir around for a minute or two until the onion is just slightly softened. Add in the garlic and ginger and stir around until it's all nicely fragrant. Remove from the heat.
- To a food mixer add the rinsed and drained black beans, the roughly chopped sweet potato, 125g of the cooked rice, the onion, garlic and ginger, all the spices together with a very generous pinch of salt and a sprinkle of freshly ground pepper. Mix until 2/3 - 3/4 has turned to mash. Scrape out the mix into a large bowl and mix around well. Now stir in the rest of the cooked rice. If you let this mix cool in the fridge for an hour or two it will be less messy for moulding the patties.
- To make the patties, take a dessert-spoonful of the burger mix into your hands and shape into a flatish round burger patty shape. Cover in either polenta or oatmeal. Place all the patties on a large plate (you might need 2 or 3 plates) and leave in the fridge until you're ready to cook them. These patties can be baked straightaway or they can keep in the fridge for 5 (!?!) days. - Or you can leave the mix in the fridge and shape some patties as you need them - which is what I actually did.
- To bake the patties heat the oven to 200 C, line a baking tray with baking paper, place the patties on the sheet and bake for 30 minutes or until the patties are kind of hard and crunchy on the outside. There is no need for any oil on the baking paper. Provided you let the patties bake completely they shouldn't stick to the paper. You can also scatter some chips (homemade or otherwise) among the burgers so you can have a burger and chips meal :o) When the burgers are cooked take out and leave to cool for 5 minutes or so.
- Serve on toasted buns with bbq sauce and gaucamole. Enjoy!
