Black Bean and Quinoa Burgers with Roasted Jalapeno Ranch

These burgers are just as good as a beef burger. Maybe even better! The seasonings in the patty make this burger so delicious. I read somewhere a looong time ago that using cumin in vegetarian cooking is a good trick because it makes things taste meatier…I could have dreamed that, but I swear I remember reading it somewhere. So because of this (possibly fake) trick, I use cumin when I am making things like this. In my opinion, it totally works. It brings amazing depth of flavor that you wouldn’t think you could get from meatless meals.

If you have never tried to make a meatless burger before, you should really try these. Even my husband (and main taste tester), Seth, loved them. And he is a meat and potatoes guy. Meat and potatoes big time. If a meat lover thinks a veggie burger is delicious, then it’s worth a try. The first thing you need to do is cook your quinoa. Add 1 cup of water to a small pot and bring it to a boil over high heat with a few pinches of salt. Add 1/2 cup of quinoa once the water is boiling, put a lid on top of the pot, and cook for ten to fifteen minutes.

Meanwhile, drain a 15.25 oz can of black beans and then dump them into a medium bowl.

Mash the black beans with a fork against the side of the bowl. There should still be some whole black beans after you are done mashing, but for the most part it should form a thick paste…like this:

Pop the black beans into your freezer while your quinoa finishes cooking. That way the beans will cool down the piping hot quinoa. The patties form better if they are cool.

Once your quinoa is done cooking, take the lid off the pot and fluff the quinoa with a fork.

Strain the quinoa using a sieve to remove any excess water.

Yum. I love quinoa. It has such a cool texture and it tastes awesome…and it’s super healthy!

So take your black beans out of the freezer and add your quinoa. Stir together.

Now add in the salt, pepper, cumin, garlic powder, onion powder, panko, and egg.

Stir all that together and place back into the freezer for five minutes.

While your quinoa/black bean mixture is cooling down, heat a large skillet over medium heat with some olive oil.

Once your five minutes are up, form 1/3 to 1/2 cup patties out of the black bean/quinoa mixture.

I will give you a tip here….I formed the patties all at once and placed them on a place for photography reasons, but they didn’t keep their shape very well when I transferred them from the plate to the pan. They are pretty soft at this point. I would recommend forming the patties and placing them directly into the pan.

So once your patties are in the pan, cook them from 3-4 minutes per side.

Veggie burgers are definitely different than regular burgers. They don’t stay together quite as well. A lot of the time, when you flip them, they will crack in several areas on the top.

BUT–don’t worry! That’s okay! Once you remove them from the pan you can fix that. I will talk about that a little later.

So once your burgers have been cooking for three-four minutes, flip them SUPER carefully and gently.

Cook them for another three-four minutes on the other side, and remove them to a plate.

Okay, so here are the tricks to make them stick together better. First of all, they need to cool for a few minutes before they do anything. They solidify big time and firm up in those few minutes. Once they have hardened a little bit, just take your hands and push together the cracks that have formed (if any have). They seal right together and you can’t even tell anything was there.

So once you have made them nice and pretty, you are ready to serve the delicious burgers!

Toast a whole wheat bun, slice some red onions, and grab a few romaine lettuce leaves and you are good to go!

Add a hefty spoonful of Roasted Jalapeno Ranch onto each side of your toasted bun, and pile on some red onion and lettuce. Top it all off with your Black Bean and Quinoa burger patty and you are all done!

SUCH a healthy and amazingly delicious meal!

Here is the recipe:

Print