Corn & Black Bean Burgers

I’m a fan of bean burgers. Cruise the freezer aisle of Whole Foods and be blown away at all the options. In general, they are all pretty good and are easy weeknight eating. I’m still on a quest to find a delicious, easy to make bean burger of my own. This corn & black bean burger recipe was an experiment that turned out to be a tasty success.

When Burger Was King

As a kid, I hated ground beef. Didn’t like burgers, didn’t like “normal” ground beef tacos. I was a hot dog girl. Part of the aversion to beef was the unexpected crunchy onion bits that were often found in ground beef dishes. This included fast food burgers.

I remember going to a friend’s birthday party when I was very young. It was at Burger King (can you believe that was a destination for a kid’s birthday party?). This was back in the days before there were chicken fingers at Burger King. It was just burgers and whalers.

My mom politely told the host mother that I didn’t like hamburgers so not to fret if I didn’t eat mine. I guess I must have at least nibbled it because I remember getting praised by my parents later that night for at least trying it.

Embracing the Cow

Sometime during college I did overcome my burger aversion. I feel like it was a very late night or very early morning when I discovered the absolute perfection of a McDonald’s hamburger WITH the crunchy onions, pickles, mustard and mayo. There is still a place for that. And while I don’t think there really is a place for Hamburger Helper in MY home, I did live in a dorm in college so I understand that too.

But other than the very rare occasion when I hit the drive through, I pretty much never eat ground beef. Or burgers. Or steak. Give me lamb, Clarice. Better yet, a bean burger.

Vegging Out

By choice, I eat almost exclusively a plant based diet. While I do love animals, it isn’t really about saving them. For me it is more about eating whole foods. Local, small, sustainable. Not mass produced, which most meat is. I find that I’m just as satisfied without meat. Plus if you cut out meat, you get to eat bigger portions or you can eat more often since veggies digest faster.

I’ve ALWAYS loved beans. I think the kidney bean was my first love. My mom had a pretty simple chili recipe (which did start with chopped onions and ground beef) that used dark red kidney beans. I loved their texture and picked around the beef base to get them.

Beans are a great substitute if you are cutting meat out of your diet because they are a great source of protein (which means they will fill you up and you won’t be starving ten minutes later). Bean burgers offer endless flavor options and are pretty darn versatile on the dinner plate.

Strange Beginnings

After kidney beans, I think refried beans (which are made with pinto beans) were my next discovery. That creamy, beany spread that showed up on my plate in a Mexican restaurant. Gross to think about that now, but it was part of the journey.

Now that I think about it, the very first bean burger recipe I ever made was a pinto bean burger. Click the image below to check out that recipe from Cooking Light.

Salad Bar Nightmares

I think chickpeas were the last bean I embraced. Most of my early experience with chickpeas was finding them on the buffet salad bar lineup. They were marinated in Italian dressing and straight from a can. Yuck. I did not have a taste for vinegar as a child, and I thought that was just what chickpeas tasted like.

The chickpea is now my favorite. I have an obscene number of cans in my pantry. I can’t go to sleep at night if I’m out of chickpeas (or avocados). As vegetarianism and veganism blossom, the chickpea is enjoying the celebrity of the brussel sprout only it’s likely to last longer.

Go Bunless

One note – I pretty much never eat veggie burgers on a bun. I either use them as part of a grain bowl meal or as taco filling. Cut a burger in half and you have two half-moons that fit perfectly into a hard corn taco shell. It’s not my idea, found it out the internet and then my head exploded because I hadn’t thought of it before.

Try a bean burger on this Savory Quinoa Breakfast Bowl from my Something Borrowed page. Good option if you prefer not to use the soft boiled egg that the recipe calls for.

Keep It Together

The key to a bean burger is finding the best way to keep it together so it doesn’t crumble when you cook it. You can always use an egg and some breadcrumbs, but the fashionable way to do it is using cooked quinoa. Sometimes I use both.

Ultimately the goal is to make a hearty bean burger that has minimal “filler” ingredients and that is a “one bowl wonder”. I’m still experimenting. Got a favorite veggie burger recipe? Share below!