Homemade kidney bean veggie burgers

I was inspired to make this after seeing this fantastic kidney bean burger recipe over at Oh.She.Cooks.. This is one of the best vegan blogs out there, full of many delicious and nutritious vegan recipes. If you are interested in going vegan, and even if you are not, be sure to visit this place for new ideas.

I’ve long wanted to make vegan veggie burgers from scratch. Although there are many brands of vegan burgers out there, they often have ingredients the health-conscious are trying to avoid. Usually it is too much sugar, or too much salt, or unhealthy fats, or some strange mystery ingredients. Or the protein content isn’t high enough. Besides this, nothing beats eating fresh by making something from scratch when you have the time.

I didn’t follow the recipe at Oh.She.Cooks. exactly, but the key ingredient in this is smashed kidney beans. I used canned kidney beans, but washed and strained them thoroughly to remove salt and contaminants.

Smash them as thoroughly or as unthoroughly as you want. I also added chopped onions(you can add any vegetables you want), bread crumbs, garlic powder, red pepper powder, black pepper, olive oil, and a tiny bit of salt.

Form into patties. I cooked them in olive oil in the pan for 10 minutes on each side. I added some lettuce and radicchio to the sandwich and it tasted great. It came out better than expected. The main problem was that the patties were kind of crumbly, but other than that not bad for the first time. This was a great vegan high protein meal for someone recovering from joggling for 21.7 miles in the nasty heat yesterday.