Inside Scoop: The best damn vegan black bean burger recipe! Totally grillable, loaded with healthy ingredients and tastes amazing.
Okay, so in our opinion there is one thing that can make or break a veggie burger. You may think it’s taste, and yes, taste is incredibly important if you want a returning customer (and trust us when we say this recipe tastes delicious), but in reality, we generally go for veggie burgers over beef burgers even if they aren’t that flavourable.
No, the number one thing is grillability.
Did we make up this word? Yes.
Are we owning it…. damn straight!
And it’s because in our experience a sloppy veggie burger is no bueno, a veggie burger that is dry and falls apart, also meh, but a burger you can form, bake, fry, AND grill is a recipe that you can frequent over and over. You can pack and bring to parties, people don’t instantly question your choices when you choose plants over animals, and all in all texture accompanies taste with this one.
So after plenty of veggie burger experiments (ones that fell apart, crumbled, tasted bland and were gritty etc.) we FINALLY found the perfect Vegan Black Bean Burger recipe! Hooray.
These vegan black bean burgers are high in protein, gluten-free, contain healthy fats, many vitamins and minerals, are bursting with flavour and completely, 100% have the grillability factor.
You’re a meat eater, hey, we get it, and we are too. But sometimes you just need to go plant-based because it can be all-in-all healthier, to be quite frank. Meatless Mondays, Plant-Based Sundays, or just need to clean it up a little bit. We promise you wont be missing out much when you choose this beautiful little burger because it is packed with flavour!
Give it a go, just once. You’ll see.
The kick-ass benefits of these black bean patties:
- High protein (will fill you for hours)
- Amazing flavour combination (BBQ sauce + caramelized onion in the burger patty really makes it taste delicious!!)
- Damn good for you
- Healthy fats
- Gluten-free
If you’re digging this burger, you should check out this Simple Kale Salad to pair it with. Tell us, how do you top your burgers?
Black Bean & Caramelized Onion Veggie Burger
Ingredients
- 1 cup cooked quinoa
- 1 can black beans 19 oz.; mashed
- 2 cups mushrooms of choice, roughly chopped
- 1/2 medium onion chopped
- 3 cloves garlic minced
- 1 cup pumpkin seeds ground; walnuts work nicely as well
- 1/3 cup oat flour can use spelt flour, brown rice flour
- 1 flax egg see below for instructions
- 4 Tbsp smoky BBQ sauce
- 2 Tbsp whole grain Dijon mustard
- 2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil or avocado oil
- Salt and pepper to season
Directions
- Cook quinoa according to package (usually do a 1:2 ratio, lid on for apx. 10 minutes).
- Heat oil over medium in a large skillet. Add in onion, mushroom and garlic. Cook until soft apx. 7-10 minutes.
- Make your flax egg* and set aside for 10 minutes.
- Meanwhile, make sure your nuts and oats are ground, and your beans are mashed.
- Add beans, nuts, oats, quinoa, mushroom, onion & garlic mix, BBQ sauce, Dijon, flax egg, salt and pepper to a large mixing bowl.
- Mix thoroughly and season accordingly.
- Take apx. 1/3 cup and form patties in hand.
- Cook on stove top with a drizzle of oil over medium apx. 3-4 minutes each side. You can also grill these burgers, and oven bake them.
This is one of our favourite BBQ sauce brands (affiliate link here).
Recipe Notes
For flax egg take 1 Tbsp ground flax seeds and mix with 3 Tbsp filtered water. Set aside for apx. 10 minutes until congealed consistency. Top with pickled onions, tomato, lettuce, vegan (or non-vegan) mayo, dijon mustard, caramelized onion, goat cheese (or vegan cheese)… or eat plain, whatever your pleasure.
Its rare to find a veggie burger that you can bake, fry and grill and I’m glad this fits the bill. Might even steal your word invention. Thanks for sharing 🙂
No problemo! We’ve been working on a veggie burger that fits this bill for quite some time. So happy we can move onto other healthy food endeavours 😉 Hope you enjoy!
It says “1 cup quinoa cooked”
Do you mean 1 cup of cooked quinoa or 1 cup of dry quinoa cooked (which will yield about 3 cups if cooked at a 2:1 ratio with water)?
Hi Rachel, this is 1 cup of cooked quinoa. Thanks for bringing this to our attention, we will edit it to create more clarity.
Same question for the nuts/seeds.
Thanks! I’m in the middle of making it now. I made extra quinoa just to have some cooked but I’m glad you clarified it before I got to this point in the recipe.
Also, have you ever made these ahead? Do they freeze well? I’m thinking to pan cook them a bit. Freeze them to bring to a barbecue with friends in a couple weeks where they will be grilled before serving.
Hi Rachel, yes these black bean burgers do freeze nicely, pre patty them and place some parchment paper in between the patty so that they are easy to peel apart for next time. How did you enjoy them?
As for the nuts and seeds, they need to be ground before you add them, or else you will have big chunks of nuts in your burger. I find it much nicer without those chunks. You can even add the entire recipe to a large food processor, just make sure not to over process.
Hi! These look great! I want to try them today. Can I substitute coconut flour? I know it wouldn’t be the same ratio, but maybe I can add a bit at a time and see how it binds?
Hello Sue, you could try with coconut flour but one thing to keep in mind is that coconut flour holds liquid very easy and often times, if too much is added, turns food very dry. If you are okay with almond flour or chickpea flour we would recommend these flours first before coconut. Another alternative is cassava as it has a 1:1 ratio with white flour. Please let us know how they turn out.