These Veggie Burgers Will Be Your New Favorite Summer Grill-Out Go-To

Delish

Made with black beans and mushrooms and topped with a chipotle mayo, these veggie burgers will make even meat lovers decide to go meatless for a meal.

Transcript

00:00Hey it's Tia in the Delish Kitchen studios. Veggie burgers used to be that just meat alternative

00:06patty at the cookout but now they have grown so much in popularity. People realize that veggie

00:12burgers are actually delicious or they can be if you put a little effort into making a good one.

00:18I'm going to show you how to make a veggie burger that's rich and full of texture

00:22and that just as importantly holds together in the pan. To start our veggie burgers we're going

00:29to begin by roasting some black beans off as well as some almonds. Black beans form the main body of

00:37this burger. Beans bring richness they also bring moisture and the starch in the beans once they're

00:44roasted and we blitz them up is actually gonna help hold the patty together. The almonds add

00:51richness as well and they also add like these little textural nuggets within the burger. We're

00:57gonna roast these off in a 350 degree oven. The black beans should take about 20 minutes. The

01:03almonds are gonna take about 8 to 10. Our almonds are all toasty and ready to go. We are gonna get

01:09these into the food processor while they are still warm. We're gonna just pulse these. You don't want

01:15nut butter so you don't want it totally smooth but you don't want huge chunks either. Basically

01:20you're looking for a consistency that's a little chunkier than a breadcrumb but definitely not fine.

01:28All good. We're just gonna get these out of the food processor and put them into a bowl. So while

01:37we're waiting for our beans to finish roasting we are going to pulse some mushrooms. I've not

01:42removed the stems. You don't need to remove the stems. We're just going to put them in here and

01:47blitz them up until they're about the texture well the size of chunks of those almonds that we just

01:54blitzed. So once these mushrooms are finely chopped we are going to transfer them. You can

02:01go right back into the same bowl and we will be cooking them out on the stove later on so just

02:06keep them handy. You might notice we didn't clean the food processor after we blitzed the almonds

02:12and we're not gonna clean it again before we add the black beans. That's totally fine. They're all

02:19going into the same place. You don't need to do a bunch of dishes. Here we are with our nicely

02:25roasted beans. You will notice that they will be peeling and split and that's exactly what you want.

02:33While they are still warm we are going to get them into the food processor and grind them up until

02:38they are about like a third of a bean size if that makes any sense. I like to use the foil because

02:43it's just easy peasy and you might notice that some like you see they will want to stick to the

02:50foil so just like take your hand and kind of just encourage them to all go into the bowl as best you

02:58can. We're gonna pulse these just like we pulsed the almonds just a little at a time. We don't want

03:04mush but we do want them broken down. Let's see.

03:12That should be good. You've got some nice powdery bits, you've got some full skins,

03:19but everything's pretty much broken down. If we were to just put a bunch of raw garlic and onion

03:25into the burger it would not taste very good. You wouldn't get the sweetness out of the onion,

03:30you wouldn't get the full flavor of the garlic either. So before we put them in with the beans

03:35we are just going to sweat them down with a little oil and a pinch of salt. This should take about

03:42seven to nine minutes. What you're really looking for is for the onion to taste sweet. That's when

03:49you know you're good to go. There we got the sweetness we were looking for. These are great,

03:55they're done, they're good to go. So I'm just going to transfer them to the bowl with the

03:59black beans. That's one of the things that I love about this recipe. You can sort of just like

04:04build everything in the bowl together and you don't need to create a bunch of extra dishes.

04:10And speaking of that we're going to use the same pan for the mushrooms. So with these mushrooms

04:15what you're looking for is honestly for them to start sticking to the pan. And that's when they're

04:20done. They can go right in with the onions and the black beans. So now we have everything roasted off,

04:27ground off, cooked off, and it's all ready to go into the bowl and we're going to make our patties.

04:32Now you might be thinking, T.A. why are there so many ingredients in this burger? Look at all of

04:38the ingredients. Well beef is a complete package. All right it has umami, it brings that crispiness

04:46on the outside, it brings that tender juicy middle, it's textural, it holds itself together, it's

04:52the full thing. With a veggie burger you need a bunch of elements to all come together to create

05:00that same experience. So into the bowl with our beans, our onions, our mushrooms, we're gonna go

05:06with our ground almonds, and our panko, a little smoked paprika, and our feta. And we're just gonna

05:17take a spatula and toss it all together until it's evenly distributed. We are throwing in the feta

05:24today because it creates those pockets of juiciness that you would normally get in a beef burger from

05:31the fat. So for binders I have whole egg and a little mayo. You want to just give this egg a nice

05:38whisk before you put it into the black bean burger. You can just like pour it in all around like that

05:44and then just chuck in the mayo. And now here's where you give it some elbow grease because

05:49there's no good way to say this. You're gonna smush the black bean mixture together until it starts to

05:55stick to the side of the bowl and this is gonna help it bind together. The smushing is actually

06:01to activate the starch of the bean. So once the mixture starts to kind of hang together almost

06:07like play-doh, it's time to make the patties. So just divide this mixture into eight and I actually

06:15just do this. You can weigh if you want if you're being really precise and often I am, but right now

06:21I'm just gonna divide it roughly into eight. Lift out one-eighth of that mixture

06:29and form it in your hand into a patty. The mixture should be holding together like this.

06:34See? If it's still crumbly, you want to go back and keep working it with a spatula.

06:39Here is where you can and should get a little precise because you want patties that are three

06:47and a half inches wide and a third of an inch tall. This is critical and I'm sorry this is a

06:53nerd moment. This is critical because how big they are, how wide they are, and how thick they are is

06:59going to impact the ratio of the crust to the interior. With something like a veggie burger,

07:08you want to have a good amount of crust because that's where a lot of that texture is coming from

07:14and that's what's going to keep it interesting and fun to eat and just overall delicious. To be honest,

07:20I usually get out a ruler and I measure. That's me. You do you. All right, looking good. The burgers

07:28need to rest in the refrigerator for at least two hours. You can go overnight. You can even

07:33freeze them at this point. That's totally fine, but they do need to have time to solidify. They

07:38will cook and hold together better if they are cold. So while the burgers are chilling in the

07:45fridge before we cook them, we are going to make my special sauce. This is no secret. It is well

07:54known in the cook community that chili peppers in adobo are bomb and they will make mayo taste

08:00amazing. So what I have is just a little mayo and into that we're going to put our chilies in adobo

08:06and we're just going to mix that up with a little pinch of salt. Now the nice thing about this sauce

08:11is you can customize it to how spicy you like it. I have two teaspoons of the sauce with one

08:17finely chopped chili, but if you're spice-averse, you can do half of a chopped chili.

08:24Taste it, see what you like. It's up to you. All right, they've been in the fridge. They're still

08:31super cold. Time to cook them. I have this pan preheated over medium heat and you want it over

08:38medium. You want to keep it over medium because unlike a beef burger, which is high heat, quick

08:44cooking, veggie burgers need to be cooked low and slow. You're going to get a great crust still,

08:51that's going to happen, but in order for the interior to be cooked through, and it does need

08:56to be cooked through because these have egg in them, you need to have them in the pan for a

09:01longer amount of time. If you go high heat too quickly, you'll end up with a really dry patty

09:07that's still cold in the middle. These burgers are going to go for about four minutes on each

09:13side. Time to flip. You should get a very nice crispy brown crust on top. I highly recommend using

09:20a fish spatula for this, or to be honest, any metal spatula, because if it does try to stick,

09:28then this spatula will just get under there, lift those crispy brown pieces off of the bottom of the

09:34pan, and make sure that they stay on your burger. That's where all the flavor is. You don't want to

09:39leave it in the pan. So you can add whatever toppings to your burger you want. I'm a fan of the classic

09:44lettuce, tomato, little red onion. One thing is indisputable though, you need plenty of the

09:49special sauce. This looks so gorgeous. I can see the crispy edges and all that texture.

09:57It's rich and it's super juicy in the center. That special sauce gives like this great

10:04smokiness to the top of it, and you do get all of that texture inside. All of that roasting and the

10:11grinding and all of the different ingredients that went into it, they're there for a reason,

10:15because they do make a difference. And once those burgers are formed, you can keep them in the fridge

10:21for up to three days, or you can freeze them individually and keep them in there for about a

10:25month, and then just pull a burger out and fry it up whenever you want to. These are the best veggie

10:31burgers I've ever eaten, and I know that once you try them, you'll think so too. For this and

10:36other vegetarian classics, stick around on delish.com.

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