Bean Burgers – the perfect health food

Burgers are something my family loves to make from scratch. My son loves making cheese burgers with a melty middle. They’re his thing!

This time, we decided to make some vegetarian burgers and made these delicious bean burgers from Mung beans.

They are really soft and delicious.. and extremely moreish.

I love to make them ahead and store some in the freezer for those days when you have no time to cook but are craving some good food.

Try them, they are really good!

Ingredients

Mung bean- 1 1/2 cup

Onion- finely chopped- 1/2 cup

Carrot- 2

Coloured pepper / Capsicum- 1, finely chopped

Potatoes- 2 medium

Coriander, finely chopped- 1/4 cup

Ginger paste- 1 tbsp

Garlic paste- 1 tbsp

Turmeric- 1/4 tsp ( optional)

Chilli powder- 1 tsp

Garam masala- 1/4 tsp (optional)

Oil- 2 tbsp

Salt – to taste

Tomatoes- 2, sliced- for assembling the burger

Onion- 1 sliced- for assembling the burger

Lettuce leaves- for assembling the burger

Mayonnniase for garnish- for assembling the burger.

Method

1. Soak mung beans in 4-5 cups of water in a large enough bowl wth enough space to swell and expand in size. Many a time, you would find that if you don’t take a large enough bowl, the beans absorb all the water in about an hour and then don’t expand much.. so yes, large bowl and lots and lots of water.

2. Then of course, prep your vegetables. Chop the onions, pepper and coriander and keep aside till required.

3. After 4-5 hours, the beans would’ve soaked. In a pan,  boil the beans with some salt for 20-25 minutes

4. In another pan, boil the potatoes and carrots for about 15 minutes or until the potatoes are cooked. Do remember to add some salt in while cooking..

If you have a pressue cooker, put the potatoes and carrots on top of your beans and cook all of them together.

5. When they’re cool,  mash the beans, potatoes and carrots. Remember to keep the beans and vegetables separately .

6. Chop the onions. Heat a pan, add 2 teaspoon of oil. Add in the chopped onion. Add a pinch of salt to draw out the moisture and help the onion soften quickly . Do all this on a medium heat.

7. When the onion is soft and pick, add in the ginger and garlic paste. Fry for 1 minute until fragrant.

8. Now add in the turmeric, chilli powder and fry for another couple of minutes, till the mixture changes colour and dries up.

9. Add in the mashed mung beans. Mix well.

10. Then add in the mashed potatoes and carrots.

10. Let cook together for some time about 5-7 minutes, till all the moisture evaporates. At this stage it is good to check the taste and add salt and garam masala. This will really enhance the flavour.

This is what your finished product would look like.

11. Add in the chopped peppers and the coriander.

12. Mix well. Let cool before shaping into burger patties.

13. To fry, heat a pan- ideally nonstick, so that you don’t need too much oil.

I fried them on my new nonstick grill

13. After about 3 minutes, the burgers will be done n one side and good enpugh to be flipped.

14. Place a cheese slice immediately on top so that it absorbs the heat from the burger and starts to melt.

15. Warm up the burger buns on the pan as well.

16. For those who are happy to eat the burger as it should- assemble everything together- lettuce, patty with cheese, onion, tomato and a squirt of mayonnaise and ketchupo to top it all.

I chose to get rid of the bread and so I had a bean burger wrappd in lettuce alongwith some onions, tomatoes and jalapenos.

Yum yum!

Try both variations and let me know what you like.