Sunday, May 22, 2011

Weekend Cooking: Homemade Veggie Burgers

While I made my own mini burgers before, I still used a store bought meat replacement as a base. Today I finally started experimenting with making veggie burgers from scratch. And I have to say that it was quite a success, though the burgers needed some extra spices.


I used a recipe from The Vegetarian Student Cookbook, which I recently bought. I am very happy with this book and I surely want to try a lot more from it. I did buy the Dutch translation, so I will be translating back to English on the blog ;)

Homemade Veggie Burgers (makes 6, the book says 4)

400gr canned red kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 spring onion (original used 1 small onion)
1 glove of garlic (not in the original)
100gr grated cheese
2 eggs
100gr bread crumbs
sunflower oil
salt and pepper
flour

Mash the kidney beans in a large bowl with a fork. Don't underestimate this because it requires quite some muscle (luckily Zeronic did this for me). Slice the onion and the garlic in the kitchen machine. Mix everything except the flower and the sunflower oil together in the bowl with the beans. Use some flour on your hands and form patties. Make sure you used new flour with each patty or else it will stick. And don't make them too thick or they will fall apart and not cook through. Heat some oil in a baking pan and bake the patties for about 8-10 minutes until they are crisp and golden-brown. Turn them halfway. I served mine with some baked spiced potatoes. Of course you can also form smaller patties and use them in the bento. They taste great with tomato ketchup and next time I am going to spice them up a bit, since they were a bit bland.

Another thing I like to add is that making your own burgers can be a great budget option. I got 6 burgers out of this recipe that required me to buy 2 cans of red kidney beans (0.60 euro each) and a package of grated cheese (1.50). This makes 2.70 in total since the rest I often have in my pantry. For 2 store bought veggie burgers I pay 2.50 euro. So this makes trice the amount of burgers for only 0.20 cents more. I am pleased about this.

What veggie burgers have you made?
Check out Samantha's version here! (in Dutch)

Don't forget to check out the other weekend cooking posts!

11 comments:

  1. That is a great recipe! I think I'll try this too. I made veggie burgers myself only once and that was with ground cashew nuts (I think) which was very, very delicious.

    I don't use kidney beans very often so that will make a nice change.

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  2. Bound to happen sometime! Tyhe burgers are great, though I don't think they need extra spices, but that's probably because I use the suggested cheddar: that's a strong cheese. And I use a royal amount of pepper. And I serve with the 'country potatoes': those have a lot of spice too. And I think I once put half the spices in my burgermix by mistake, which was awesome!

    Overigens is zelfgeraspte kaas een stuk goedkoper, niet uitgedroogd en niet bedorven!

    Tip for squashing the beans (don't blend them D= ): Put them in a freezerbag or between two sheets of cling and attack with a rolling pin/bottle/pot!

    Have you tried/are you trying other recipes from the book? I must admit that I have ignored it for quite a while, but I'm rediscovering both my veggie and reading-side and I'm reviewing what I can toss – because I also feel minimalistic more – so I'm back in the books! But would be fun to do a duo-review =)

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  3. Cheddar IS expensive though =( 2.50 for a block? It's cheaper to up the spices.

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  4. @ CyV: Well the Dutch version didn't use Cheddar so I never knew until you mentioned it :)

    And I had leftover grated cheese from the lasagna I made earlier this week. But I sometimes grate cheese myself, sometimes not. Depends if I want to save money or energy ;)

    @Leeswammes: Cashew as a base sounds great too. That is something I would be willing to try :)

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  5. This recipe looks great, and simple. I absolutely love homemade veggie burgers. My kids enjoy them most with "Mexican" spices -- chili powder or smoked paprika, cumin and oregano. And like Judith said, nuts are a nice addition. Thanks for the post!

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  6. I've never tried to make homemade veggie burgers, but will definitely show this post to my daughter. I'd love to give this a try - thanks!

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  7. This looks really delicious. I love veggie burgers, but have never tried making them myself. Thanks for sharing!

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  8. Oh boy, these sound good! So nice to see a recipe without mushrooms. It seems like they are usually the base for veggie burgers. I'd bet other beans (like cannellini) would work too. I used to make soy burgers a lot. I occasionally make one with garbanzo beans. But now my 'go-to' recipe is one I got from another blogger, called Rice Burgers:

    http://lettersfromahillfarm.blogspot.com/2009/08/heathers-brown-rice-patties.html

    I'm going to save your recipe and make them (only without the cheese for me). Thanks!

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  9. Sounds yummy. I would go with oregano or cumin to spice it up depending on my mood.
    http://www.joyweesemoll.com/

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  10. Oooh, so glad to have this recipe. My niece is a vegetarian and I love having a quick dish she can make herself.

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  11. Never tried homemade veggie burgers. My son loves veggie burgers we get in restaurants but not the supermarket, will have to try this! Looks great!

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