Black Bean Burgers

Deliciously devoured in a taco, burger or wrap

When I first thought of making the 7 day meal plan this recipe was one of the first that came to mind that I knew I had to include. Not only are they so amazingly delicious but they are freezer friendly which means they are perfect for meal prep. If you love them as a wrap, wait until you have made them into tacos or a black bean burger.

I always hear people want to implement a more plant-based diet but they don’t know where to start and I think black bean burgers are a great place. No tofu or scary ingredients and I am pretty sure a lot of these shelf stable ingredients are things you may already have. I love this as an intro recipe to plant based cooking because we are not doing anything crazy here - like marinating a tofu block in beet puree to make a salmon fillet. We are really just doing some chopping, mixing with our hands and shaping patties.

I’ve made these with different types of mushrooms, jalapenos, and even made them with out kale and sweet potato. All long as they are well mixed, shaped and set in the fridge. They always come crispy and delicious.

Black bean burgers with sweet potato and kale

Makes approx. 6 Burger Patties

Ingredients / For the patty mix

1 Can Black Beans, rinsed

1 cup - Sweet Potato, roasted and then diced.

3 tbsp - chopped Garlic

3 tbsp - chopped cilantro

1/4 cup - diced green bell pepper

1/2 cup - diced onion

2 cups - chopped kale

1/4 - cup roasted red peppers, chopped

* reserve half of all your chopped vegetables and sauté the other half, allow to cool down in the fridge and then add it to a bowl with the rest of the mix.

1 cups - panko

3 tbsp - flour

1/2 tbsp - garlic powder

2 tbsp - soy sauce

2 tbsp - adobo seasoning or sea salt

1/2 tsp - cumin

Sweet N Spicy Aioli

1 cup - vegan mayo

1/4 cup - sweet chili sauce

1/2 a lime, juiced

1/4 - cup sriracha - or to taste

The Slaw

1/2 a red cabbage, thinly sliced

1/4 cup green onions, thinly sliced

1/4 cup cilantro, chopped

1/4 cup sweet N spicy aioli

Instructions

Step 1

I always like to start by getting all my mise en place together. Washing produce, chop vegetables and roasting chunks of sweet potato.

Step 2

Once all your veg prep is out in front. Get a sauté pan nice and hot and sauté half of what you measured out for your veg. For example, sauté 1/4 cup onion, half a jalapeno, 1 tbsp garlic and 1 cup kale. Once sauteed, place aside to cool.

Step 3

In a big bowl, dump your drained beans, sweet potato, garlic, onion.. everything in the above patty recipe. Once you have added everything including the flour, panko and seasonings. With your hands give everything a good mash, combining everything.

Step 4

Once the patty mixture is thoroughly mixed, begin rolling and making your patties in your desired thickness and shape like burger patties. Then coat each one in the breading. Set on to a sheet pan and place your full tray of patties into the fridge or freezer to set a bit while making the other items needed for dish. By allowing the patties to set this will help them to not fall apart once placed into the hot oil for frying (you can also store them in the freezer to cook later on).

Step 5

Prepare the Sweet N Spicy Slaw Dressing as well as the slaw itself and set aside. Prepare a pot of hot oil or a cast iron pan with some oil. These patties taste wayyy better deep fried…of course. However these can be pan seared. I have not attempted baking or air frying them as I don’t think that would do a whole lot for us here with our panko breading.

Step 6

Drop each burger 1 at a time in the pot of oil, cook until crispy and probably longer than you think they need since they’re thick. Once fried allow them to dry off on a paper towel to remove excess grease.

Step 7

These are so good in wraps, as burgers and are so good shaped smaller to fit in tacos - truly amazing.

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The weekly round-up

This week was my sisters 18th birthday and she requested a Fortnight themed cake and hinted towards maybe decorating it with the Fortnight llama. Luckily I have actually played Fortnight before so I had some visual inspiration. The game itself has a lime green, purple and blue theme throughout so I thought doing a sprinkle cake with those colors would be really cute. For the flavor she requested a vegan marble swirl cake and I made a cake batter flavored buttercream.

I’ve never made a swirl cake before so this was a first but its really not anything different just a little bit extra steps to make 2 batters, vanilla and chocolate. Swirling the two batters with a stick to get the swirly effect was also pretty fun.

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Here she is in all her glory. For a rememberable 18th birthday party with her friends in their senior year of high school just before graduation !

This month is also my birthday month so I have been doing some thinking as to what I want to do. All I know is I do want to make tres leches and queso fundito with my favorite soy chorizo from Trader Joes and fresh tortillas. I will also be posting a hidden veggie mac n cheese and my favorite avocado toast. Two things I love to eat to finish the photography portion of the 7 day meal plan. I cant wait to be this much closer to finishing my first e-book which is not something I would ever dabble in and it has been coming along better than I had imagined myself and I am excited about getting to put all the pieces together.

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And that’s it for today. Tune in on Friday to see a fun little video of me decorating a marbled sprinkle cake for my sisters 18th birthday.

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Thanks for staying posted and reading along. I appreciate all my supporters so much. Talk to you all soon !