These veggie burgers are delicious—a little sweet, a little savory, a little spicy, and they're packed with nutritional goodness from quinoa, black beans, sweet potatoes, and oats. I found them in Cookie and Kate's cookbook, Love Real Food, and am sharing her recipe below with a few minor changes.
Making these yummy burgers is a bit time-consuming, unless you happen to have a lot of the main ingredients on hand as pre-cooked leftovers -- something that happened to me once and was awesome!, but they freeze well so I recommend doubling or tripling the batch to get more bang for your burger prep buck.
A few notes:
- I never have quick cooking oats so I followed Kate's note and pulsed a bunch of regular rolled oats (do not use steel cut oats here) in the food processor until they were chopped but before they turned into flour.
- I recommend using seasoned black beans instead of plain canned beans as the flavor of the burgers will be better. Seasoned black beans are another thing I like to make in bulk in the Instantpot and freeze in quart-sized mason jars to make future meals easy.
- I am a huge fan of Japanese yellow-fleshed sweet potatoes. In my humble opinion, they have the best flavor and texture and are not overly sweet. If you have access to this variety, I reommend using them over Garnets or yams. And I would not recommend using purple sweet potatoes for this recipe as they're a lot more starchy than they are sweet.
- These burgers can be fried, grilled, or baked. I baked mine since it requires less oil and creates a lot less splatter.
- Don't skimp on the toppings!
I hope you enjoy these toothsome veggie burgers which happen to be gluten-free and vegan.
-- print recipe --
Best Veggie Burgers
Makes 8 burgers
Ingredients
- 1 ½ pounds sweet potatoes (2 medium or 3 small)
- ½ cup quinoa, rinsed in a fine-mesh colander (or 1½ cups cooked quinoa)
- 1 cup water
- 1 Tbsp Better than Bullion vegetable broth
- 1½ cups cooked black beans (or one 15-oz can of black beans)
- ½ cup chopped red onion (about ½ small red onion)
- ⅓ cup chopped fresh cilantro
- 3-4 cloves garlic, pressed or minced
- 2 tablespoons adobo sauce (I get mine from the sauce in a can of chipotle peppers)
- 2 teaspoons smoked paprika
- 2 teaspoons ground cumin
- 2 tsps sriracha sauce
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 ¼ cups quick-cooking oats (you can pulse rolled oats in a food processor until roughly chopped if you don't have quick-cooking oats, you'll need more than 1 ¼ cups but you can measure as you go)
- Extra-virgin olive oil, for brushing
Directions
- Roast the sweet potatoes. Preheat the oven to 400° F. Rinse the sweet potatoes and slice them length-wise down the middle. Rub a little olive oil on the bottom of each and place cut-side down on a baking sheet and bake for 30-40 minutes until soft when you give them a little squeeze then set them aside to cool. Here's one of the ways my recipe differs from Kate's -- please do NOT use parchment paper! Not only is it unnecessary and wasteful, it's also not really paper but paper coated with a thin layer of silicone which is a type of plastic. None of us need more plastic or its thousands of chemicals in our food or bodies. You can clean the pan, instead.
- While the sweet potatoes are baking, make the quinoa. In a small pot, combine the rinsed quinoa with the water and the Better than Bouillion and bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then reduce the heat as needed keep the quinoa at a gentle simmer. Cook, uncovered until the water has been absorbed, 12-15 minutes. Remove from heat, cover, and let the quinoa steam for 10 minutes.
- Once the sweet potatoes have cooled down enough to handle, remove the flesh from the skins and add to a large bowl, along with the quinoa, black beans, onion, cilantro, garlic, adobo sauce, smoked paprika, cumin, garlic powder, onion powder, sriracha, and salt. Mix them with a potato masher to mix this all together well. Don't worry about the beans getting smashed as that is fine.
- Sprinkle the oats over the mixture and then mix together with a large spoon until well incorporated and the mixture holds together well when you form a patty. If you're not going to be cooking the patties right away, cover the bowl tightly and refrigerate.
- Shape the burgers using a half cup measure and shaping it into a patty, using your fingers to smooth the edges and flatten the patty. The mixture should make 8 good-sized burger patties.
- Preheat the oven to 400° F. Brush the burgers with olive oil on top and bottom and place on a heavy metal baking sheet and bake until golden, flipping once, for about 35 minutes. To fry, heat a tablespoon of grapeseed or peanut oil in a large heavy-duty skillet over medium heat until shimmering, then fry the patties for 3-4 minutes on each side, until golden.
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