Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Seitan Black Bean Corn Burgers


I don't always have the most success with meatless burgers (well not that I ever had success with meat burgers as I did not enjoy them and never made them). They always fall apart when I'm pan frying them, or dry out too much if I bake them. But I think I'm starting to find my burger groove! I try not to use too much oil when cooking, but you need to make sure you have enough oil in the pan so that the burgers don't stick and fry up nicely, making them easy to flip and less likely to fall apart.

These burgers were really flavourful with the smoked paprika, cumin and chili powder. And yes I talk about how I hate beans but I do really enjoy black beans, especially in a form like these burgers. I loved eating these burgers with pickles. But then I'm also really obsessed with pickles recently. In particular the Steinfeld Kosher Petite Dill Pickles. (Not that they're paying me to promote them I just really love them.)

If this sounds good, you might also like:
Mushroom Pecan Burger
Black Bean Confetti Salad
Triathalon Tostadas
Black Bean, Zucchini & Olive Tacos with Garlic-Lemon Yogurt

Seitan Black Bean Corn Burgers
Adapted from Vegan Yum Yum

Makes about 10 burgers

1 cup seitan
14 oz can black beans, rinsed and drained (about 2 cups)
1 tbsp vegan Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp reduced sodium soy sauce
1 cup ground whole wheat bread crumbs
2 tbsp all purpose flour
1/2 cup frozen corn
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp chili powder
2 tbsp high heat vegetable oil for pan frying

1. Add the seitan to the food processor and process until finely chopped (a few remaining bigger chunks are okay).

2. Add the beans, and process until finely chopped (you may still see the occasional bean piece). Remove this mixture to a mixing bowl.

3. Add the Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, bread crumbs, flour, corn, paprika, cumin, and chili powder to the seitan/bean mixture and mix well with your hands or a spoon. Adjust the mixture with salt, to taste, or add more bread crumbs if the mixture is too wet. It should be moist but not gloppy. For example, if you stuff your 1/4 cup measure with it, you should have to pry it out. If it glops out by itself, it's probably too wet.

4. Heat the oil n a pan over medium-high heat.

5. Begin forming patties (1/4 cup of mixture per patty). Make them thin to avoid a too-mushy center. You can form all of the patties ahead of time and place them on wax/parchment paper, foil, etc.

6. Fry patties four at a time, or however many reasonably fit into the pan until dark brown on either side.

13 comments:

Sasha Cohen said...

I experimented trying to make a veggie burger the other day, but your looks much better!!! Thanks for the recipe so now I can make a successful one in the kitchen next time.

Hannah said...

Any meatless burger I've made was basically crumbled too. This is on my list!

Joanne said...

I was never a big burger lover either, but I do love me some veggie burgers! They can totally be a pain, though. These sound great! Seitan is the one fake meat I've never really played around with and I've been meaning to do more with it!

janet @ the taste space said...

Pickled foods have been my obsession recently, too, hehe. I was on a sauerkraut craze last month and will likely make a homemade batch this week.... AND I have pickle soup on my menu this week, too!! I will let you know how it goes!!

XL @ 6 Bittersweets said...

Love that these have more heft from the seitan. And of course you can't get better than black bean burgers!

Johanna GGG said...

These look good - I find that the easiest way to make burgers is to grill them (same as broiler in usa - not sure what you say) with a bit of oil spray on them - but maybe that is because I find it hard to get it right when pan frying - I guess the seitan helps to hold the burgers together - dont think I have ever made burgers with them but I know the vital wheat gluten helps to bind burgers

grace said...

i know many people who don't care for seitan, but black beans are so wonderful, they can mask any horror! i'd love to give these a try--thanks!

Wendy said...

These look so interesting! I made some burgers the other day with leftover filling from the stuffed mushroom recipe in 1000 Vegan Recipes.. I combined it with some apple-sage sausage crumbles from Kathy Hester's Vegan Slow Cooker and they were really good! I will be posting that one on my blog if you are interested in checking it out. Thanks for the recipe! Love your blog as always.

neomi said...

I think the best kind of vegetable burgers have some sort of beans in them. And I think Black beans are the best so I hope to try this recipe soon!

So far the best one I've made were from the post punk kitchen blog, they were called the olive/lentil burgers (I made them with out the olives, but added some grated zucchini) in case you want to try another one--they were pretty easy and tasty. I think the reason they worked and didn't fall apart was that I didn't have to flip them! (they are made in the oven so they held their shape :)

eatme_delicious said...

neomi: Ooo thanks for the burger recommendation, those olive lentil ones sound really good. I'll have to check them out!

The Healthy Apple said...

I love zucchini fries and make these at least once a week. Just fond your blog and it's wonderful!
Have a lovely New Year; so excited to keep up with more of your incredible recipes.

neomi said...

I just made these and they came out really really nice. I didn't have corn so I subbed some diced mushrooms which were nice too--though not as pretty as corn. For some reason my mixture seemed really dry so I didn't add the flour.

Oh about the seitan--I made that today too so this was all quite a project, I think next time I'll make the seitan on a separate day to make these easier to make.

eatme_delicious said...

neomi: Yaey glad they turned out well. Good to hear they worked out well with mushrooms. Yea the seitan takes a bit of time.