Happy St. Patty’s Day!

No, I’m not drinking green beer. I’m making patties.

Mediterranean Black bean quinoa burgers, served with sweet potato fries and snow peas. Topped with mozzarella.

I’ve been playing with the idea of making homemade veggie burgers or veggie patties for a while. Actually, I tried once in my pre-blogging days, without a recipe and without much success. The veggie burger is one of Alex’s favorites, and I’d love to be able to make them at home rather than buying frozen patties. You can see how often we eat patties from my recent post on mushroom patties and my description of Allyn’s (one of our favorites: I like the beer list, Alex likes the veggie patty they make).

I saw this recipe on The Voracious Vegan and was eager to give it a shot. I pretty much followed the recipe, except I didn’t have chickpea flour so I used brown rice flour, and I cut it in half. It’s made of mushed black beans, cooked quinoa, sun-dried tomatoes, flour, ground flax seed, and liquid smoke. I made two huge patties and one smaller patty. If I do it again, I’d make four smaller patties. Unlike ground beef, they don’t shrink when they cook!

The texture of this recipe was spot-on. They formed into patties really easily and held their form as I cooked them in a skillet. I ate mine without a bun (as pictured) but Alex went for the bun, along with ketchup, mustard, and pickles. I used some Pickapeppa sauce as it seemed a little bland. Black beans and quinoa are both pretty mild flavors, and there weren’t many other flavors until you reached a bite with sun-dried tomato. Note, though, the original recipe has a red onion and basil aoili that probably helps a lot.

I think I’m going to make burgers regularly. I’m already looking for my next recipe!