Black Bean Burgers/Patties

Update: While the original black bean burger recipe post went live in February 2012, the pictures and parts of the recipe were updated in July 2016. Below is the original post.

There are plenty of reasons why I chose to not post for GMT (again) this week.

One, I had my hands on the last of The Hunger Games Trilogy, Mockingjay, and could not put it down till I finished it.

Two, it snowed in our little mining town and it never snows here. Well, almost never. I just did not feel like spending time on the laptop while looking at the snow fall.

Three, I had decided last Sunday that I am taking no more pictures of my food, till I do not post the pile of recipes in my folders on my comp. (Actually I had decided, sometime last week, but broke that resolve to click the Mascarpone Meringue Cake and the Browned Butter cookies). My blogger’s block hasn’t been helping me in getting rid of the backlog, but till the pending recipes aren’t posted I am not clicking any more pictures.

Four, because it was V-day. Not that I celebrate Valentine’s day, but since V day is a play on what I call my husband (V) on the blog, I just found it amusing and thought would take a break for “V”day! And what would you know, on V day, V is the one who gets flowers and a card for me! You would think it would be the other way round. But, no- not in our household. V is the more romantic one. I’m the banal one. But, I can be nice too. I did make his favorite Baingan ka Bharta (roasted and mashed eggplant) for lunch. For dinner, we went out. 🙂

So, in light of the above reasons, I am sure you understand why I did not post on GMT yet again. In fact I have decided that I am taking a break for the month of February for GMT, and will resume posting in March. I am trying recipes. And hopefully, in March I will have much more to share than I have now.

Coming to today’s post.

A few weeks back I had pinned these black bean burgers on Pinterest.

She calls them spicy, but I did not find them spicy. Well I did not use sriracha sauce, though the sauce I used is slightly spicy too. Next time probably will up the spice a bit. Besides that, they were absolutely delicious. Love that these are protein packed and are so much more healthy than other burgers. And cheaper than the supermarket packaged ones.

I served them with Ina Garten’s blue cheese coleslaw. The slaw did not impress me too much. Next time I will just have it with some mayo, mustard and ketchup. And some jalapeno peppers. And onions for V.

The recipe is one that I found on keepitsimplefoods.com, but it has been adapted from allrecipes.com.

I did go through some of the reviews before making them and these tips helped me:

1. Rinse the black beans and dry them well before mashing them. The lesser the liquid in your mixture, the more likely they are to not break when cooked. You can also drain it out, and put on a baking tray and bake them for a few minutes. This article by Chef Kenji tells why baking the beans makes a difference.
2. Strain the onion, garlic and pepper mixture through a fine strainer to remove any excess water. If I have the time I sometimes sauté the veggies.
3. If you feel the mixture is still wet, add a little more  bread crumbs.
4. Refrigerating or even freezing them helps them to sick together when cooked. Its better that you cook them in a pan. Holding them in the refrigerator for 30 minutes gives the breadcrumbs time to soak up the excess moisture, if any. Some reviewers had grilled them, but only after they let them in the freezer for a few hours.
5. I always fry one small patty in some oil first to make sure that the seasoning and spices are fine. Its better to spoil one patty and save the rest, instead of frying all and finding out the seasoning is off.
6. Making a double batch, baking it, and freezing them once these first four patties are gone. They would be SO handy to have on hand for those nights you don’t want to cook.  This recipe makes a large patty, which is the perfect size for the largish buns.

Personal note to me– next time add some ground flaxseed, to make it even more healthy. Also, follow tip of a reviewer who used whole wheat Ritz crackers instead of bread crumbs. Next time I will also see how briefly sautéing the chopped veggies (to get rid of excess moisture) affects the mixture (update: helps!)

Though the recipe says that the yield is 4 burgers, I made them a little smaller and got 6 burgers out of the mixture.