Tonight’s dinner menu included a recipe from my new cookbook How To Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman. Simple Bean Burgers sounded, well, simple, interesting and quick to make – even on a weeknight.
I followed the recipe exactly minus the 1 tablespoon of chili powder – instead I used a combination of garlic powder, italian seasoning, oregano and dried chives. Next time, I may try the chili powder – these were a little bland.
They also didn’t hold up very well – they fell apart while cooking.
We topped our bean burgers with Wholly Guacamole (Matt and I split a 100 calorie pack), one slice of cheddar cheese, romaine lettuce and tomato. These toppings helped the bean burger and gave it some life, however, I have to go with the advice of Mark Bittman to give this burger some bite.
Matt and I both agreed this recipe should be tried again – I just wonder how I can get it to stay together better?!?
With our bean burger, Matt used the mandolin to slice two sweet potatoes into chips. We mixed these chips with olive oil and baked them at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes.
I ate these chips plus another serving of about this size!
Anyone have any advice how to keep these burgers together better?!?
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
2 ideas:
1) Add 2 tbsp flour and a tsp of baking powder to the food processor before you pulse the ingredients together. It’s what I put in the baked falafel and it keeps them together nicely, although I’m not entirely sure how it’d work with the egg. Maybe process all your ingredients, then stir in the flour/baking powder by hand.
2) Try grinding up the oats into flour before you add the rest of the ingredients, if you don’t want to change the recipe. When they’re ground, they’ll be better binders for the bean mixture if they’re smaller in size.
Let me know if that works!
Is there egg in it? A little egg or a little more egg might help bind it together better…. Crumbly or not, they look yummy!
The burger still looks great to me – I haven’t made my own veggie burgers so I can’t be too much help here!
I was thinking egg too….
Love sweet potato chips, yum!
Ditto Lauren!
Egg whites and bread crumbs? They still look good though. I’d eat ‘em!
I’ve never made a burger before so i can’t help you there.
But the sweet potato chips look awesome!
Love this meal! So funny, black bean burgers and sweet potato fries are on the menu for Sunday night!! We’re using a recipe from a Betty Crocker vegetarian cookbook…can’t remember the recipe right now but we’ve made them once before and they were terrific, no problems with falling apart. I’ll post the recipe when we make them!