Black Bean Burgers (Recipe from The Daily Garnish)

The other day I was SO bored at work and was doing some back reading on some blogs I recently started following. I saw these vegan black bean burgers on Emily's blog (The Daily Garnish). I loved this recipe for a lot of reasons. I love black bean burgers and with the exception of the pepitas, I already had every ingredient for these on hand.

After reading some of reviews for this and based on my personal tastes, I did make a few changes. You can find her original recipe in the link above.



I may or may not have had a huge pile of tater tots with these =)

Black Bean Burgers

Ingredients

• 2 cans black beans (rinsed and drained)
• 2 medium sized carrots, grated
• 1/2 cup of dry rolled oats
• 1/4 cup of pepitas (pumpkin seeds)
• 1 finely diced jalepeno
• 2 tbsp of olive oil
• 1 tsp of cumin
• 1 tsp of chili powder
• 1 tsp of onion powder 
• 1 tsp of garlic powder
• 1 tsp of cayenne pepper
• 1 tsp of sea salt
• 1/4 tsp of black pepper

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  
2. Grate the carrots in the food processor. Once grated, add the oats and the pepitas. Add 3/4 of the beans, all spices, and the olive oil.  Once all of this is in the food processor, let it go until well combined (the mixture is pretty much the consistency of hummus).
3. Spoon the mixture into a bowl and add the rest of the beans and the jalepeno. Fold them in and mix until evenly distributed.
4. With wet hands, form the mixture into large patties (I got 6 large patties out of this, and one little baby one I used for sampling =) ).
5. Place the patties on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake at 350 degrees for an hour. Flip the burgers halfway through. 

Emily's original recipe called for a couple more spices, but I omitted those for my burgers. There was coriander, which I simply didn't have and cinnamon. I will never put cinnamon in a savory dish. Ever. I may be missing out on the greatest thing since feta or Nutella cheesecake, but I don't care. Cinnamon in a savory dish makes me think of Cincinnati style chili, which I loathe. My ex LOVED it. I tried it once at Skyline when we were in  Cincinnati together visiting his family. I took one bite and pretty much gagged. A few years later, I made him a whole pot of it, because I was that awesome of a girlfriend, and even when it came out of my own kitchen I still hated it. Anyways. That's the end of that little rant. I also doubled all of her seasonings. I like everything super spicy. Even doubling the seasonings and adding the jalepeno, these were still really mild.


Lastly, I baked mine at a higher temperature and for a longer period of time. She baked hers at 300 for 40 minutes, but based on some of the reviews, I upped the cooking time and temperature.

The mixture may not look appealing, but it is delicious!

They looked like cookies =)

They were a little crumbly on the outside, but the inside was soft, moist and so delicious. I love the Morning Star Spicy Black Bean burgers, but these are SO much better. And even if I would have had to buy the beans and the carrots (I keep a very well stocked spice cabinet), these would still have cost me less than $2.00 for all six of them. A box of the Morningstar ones costs about $4.00. I'm not vegan. Hell, I'm not even vegetarian, but these are delicious! I ate mine with some sliced pepper jack cheese, mixed baby greens and some salsa. These were spicy and delicious and the pepper jack and salsa just knocked them out of the park! I can't wait till Graham gets home so I can make these for him.