veggie burger Archives - Splash of Sherri

black bean and beet veggie burger

Posted on July 11, 2020 by Sherri

Looking for an amazing veggie burger recipe? Meet my black bean and beet veggie burger; it’s a triple B – beans, beets and brown rice. It’s my riff on the Northstar Café veggie burger, a Columbus favorite to both vegetarians and meat lovers alike. If you live in Columbus and haven’t had one yet you might not be able to call yourself a true Buckeye – just kidding – not really kidding! Northstar Cafe is our “go to place” not just because of this burger, but that’s the big draw. It’s always on the itinerary when friends and family come to visit which makes me wonder if they are coming to see us, or if it’s the veggie burger they’re after! We have literally driven straight from the airport to Northstar more times than I can count!

Wonder why these burgers are so popular and crave able? First off they are served on a buttered and grilled brioche bun and topped with white cheddar cheese. They’re hearty from the rice and beans, sweet and juicy from the beets, and have a warm smokiness from the chilies. The prunes are the one ingredient you wouldn’t think belongs, but boy do they! They add a sweet caramelized flavor which is surprising and delicious. It’s tender on the inside and has the texture of a regular burger. Once grilled, the burger forms a nice smoky charred outer crust. It’s this combination that make an amazing burger. together all of these ingredients give the burgers that umami* you want in a really good burger.

My take is so close to the original I even surprised myself! I have always had a thing for recreating food from restaurants and bakeries. Remember my copycat of the Little Eater root vegetable couscous? More recently I posted my version of NYC’s Levain chocolate chip cookies – I hope you have tried them! They should both give me some street cred. Replicating a recipe is like a food puzzle and I love puzzles! I take the original, break it apart, write down all of the ingredients I can see and taste, then try to put it back together again kind of like humpty dumpty. Then through trial and error plus many, many versions, a winner emerges and this is it.

There are so many reasons to love these burgers: they are super easy, extremely tasty, plant-based, vegan, gluten free (if you use gluten free oat flour), hearty, very satisfying and they have everything you look for in a regular burger with the added bonus of being vegetarian. My husband said it would be fun to call them a triple B burger because they contain beans, beets, and brown rice. What do you think?

If you’re ever in Columbus definitely check out Northstar Cafe and see for yourself why they are so famous. But in the meantime, give my black bean and beet veggie burger a try and you just might earn honorary buckeye status… Enjoy!

This recipe makes 12 – 5 to 6 ounce burgers.

ingredients
1 ¼ cups dry brown rice cooked according to package. Yields 5 to 6 cups cooked
1 pound roasted red beets or precooked**
2 cans black beans drained and rinsed (set 1 cup aside)
½ to 1 cup oat flour (directions to make your own below)***
2 cups fresh parsley leaves (will yield about ¼ cup minced)
1 heaping cup prunes (careful to check there are no pits)
2 tablespoons chipotle chilies in adobo sauce (I used Goya chipotle chili peppers in adobo and used 2 peppers and purred them with the mustard)
1 to 2 tablespoons Gulden’s spicy brown mustard
1 to 2 teaspoons salt (or to taste)
optional toppings: white cheddar cheese, field greens or shredded romaine, tomato, diced sweet onion, pickle, avocado
mustard sauce
5 tablespoons mayonnaise
3 tablespoons Gulden’s mustard

directions
Before you get started: Take a large 5 quart glass or metal bowl and set aside. All of the ingredients will go in there as they are ready. Prep all of the ingredients individually in a food processor (except the rice) then mix them all together. It may seem like there are a lot of steps but some ingredients are canned, and you can cook the brown rice and roast the beets a day beforehand.

ingredients for black bean and beet veggie burger

Cook the rice according to package directions, cool and add 5 1/2 cups to the bowl. Set 1 cup aside for later use if needed.

Beets: Cut roasted beets into quarters and place into the food processor. Pulse about 5 or 6 times or until you have pieces a little smaller than a pea. Place in the bowl. Roasting directions follow at the end.

Drain 2 cans of beans and rinse. Reserve one cup whole beans and add to the large mixing bowl. Put the rest of the beans in the food processor and pulse about 18 to 20 times or until it’s broken up but still has some bean pieces. Add the beans to the bowl.

the rest of the ingredients
Check for pits in the prunes then place them in the food processor and pulse until broken up to about the size of a raisin and add to the bowl with the beets and beans.

Puree the 2 tablespoons of chilies and sauce with 1 tablespoon of mustard. You could just use the adobo sauce if the chilies are too spicy. Mince the parsley and add to the bowl.

Add the rice to the bowl and pour the rest of the ingredients in as well. Using gloves, mix everything together. Season with salt and pepper then add the oat flour ½ cup at a time. You only need enough to hold everything together. Use ¾ to 1 cup depending on how wet the other ingredients are.

Mix thoroughly and make 11 to 12 (5 to 6 ounce) patties. When making the patties, try not to compact them. Form them firm enough to just hold together. If not using right away, wrap them individually in plastic wrap. They freeze beautifully in the uncooked stage.

to cook
Heat a grill pan on medium high heat. Spray the pan with cooking spray. Place the patty in the pan and cook about 4 to 5 minutes on each side. If you want cheese, add it after you flip the burger. Cook until you have nice grill marks.

to serve
I like to serve the burger on a nice soft bun toasted in a pan on the cut side. Then put the mustard sauce on both sides of the bun (sometimes I use guacamole – also delicious) place the patty on the bottom, lettuce, sliced tomato, pickles, and diced onion – However you like to have your burger. If you’re not eating bread carbs, try a roasted sliced sweet potato bun. I think that would taste great.

recipe notes
*umami is called the 5^th taste added to sweet, salty, sour and bitter. Real Simple magazine says umami usually describes indescribable deliciousness making something savory, rich, yum.

I like the taste of roasting the beets but, in a pinch using precooked beets are perfectly fine. Aside from canned beets, you can usually find the Love brand shrink-wrapped in the refrigerated area of most groceries this would be my second choice if I can’t roast them. Just make sure they are plain beets in water – definitely not pickled!

**how to roast the beets, preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Heat oven to 400 degrees. Cut the beets off close to the stem. Set the leaves aside for another use. Scrub the beets well and wrap loosely in aluminum foil. Place the beet packets into a rimmed baking dish to roast in case any juices escape. Roast for close to an hour. Check them in 30 minutes and then every 15 minutes to see if a fork or sharp knife will slide through easily. Smaller beets will take less time to roast and may be done in 45 minutes. Larger ones will take closer to 60 minutes. Let them cool.

I wear gloves to take the skin off so not to stain my hands and I use aluminum foil as my base so I can throw all the skins and trimming away after. Cut the ends of the beets off, hold in a paper towel and use a portion of the towel to rub the skin off. It should peel off easily. For more beet roasting info check out this link from the kitchn.

***how to make oat flour Place 2 ½ cups of oatmeal in the food processor pulse a few times until you get a coarse flour it will yield a little over 1 cup. Set aside, this will be used as the binder at the end. My sister used almond flour in lieu of oat flour and said it was very successful. I think grinding walnuts would be really good as well.

ingredients for black bean and beet veggie burgers — ingredients for the black bean and beet veggie burger – very simple ingredients

If you don’t have a food processor use a potato masher or fork for the beans and beets (wear gloves), dice the prunes to a little smaller than pea size. For the chilies, you can use just adobo sauce the chilies are packed in or if you have a blender use that.

Here’s What’s Coming…

Posted on July 17, 2014 by Sherri

It’s been a couple of weeks since my last post and I owe all my readers a big apology! My intention is to write something at least 3 times a week and being a newbie at this I’m still figuring out my groove. I marvel at some of the bloggers that post everyday; it has to be their full time job!

Whether you come up with an original recipe or follow one from a cookbook, you still have to shop for ingredients, then do the cooking or baking. After that, you have to style and photograph the food, sometimes photographing and documenting how to make the recipe all along the way. Then you then have to go through tons of photographs and select just the right ones. In some cases the photos need to be edited in Photoshop. Finally you can sit down to write a story to go with it. Writing the story, recipe, and editing, can easily take an hour or two. Now that you see what it takes to write a blog post, hopefully you’ll give me a pass for leaving you the past couple of weeks. But trust me, I wasn’t on a vacation from my blog. I was doing research and have had a great many food experiences and adventures along the way.

So, what’s been going on with Sherri? Well, quite a bit actually!

Here’s what you have to look forward to:

Entered a Food Contest (came in 4th place in my category)

Had friends for dinner, one of which writes the blog No Chefs Allowed and she brought me Homemade Preserved Lemons.

Tried a charming New Restaurant in town (South of Lane).

Came up with a great Veggie Burger Recipe & Sauce to go with it.

Found a fun cookbook with Ice Pop Recipes that look so good I can’t wait to try one!

Ordered from a Snack Delivery Service I saw advertised on the Cooking Channel (which I received today),

Thinking about doing a Food Crawl in my area focusing on coffee – iced of course!

Went to a Farmer’s Market i can’t wait to tell you all about it!

Going to take a class called The Life of Pie.

There you have it, a truly fun filled couple of weeks that I’m ready to write about and share with you, So Get Ready!

It’s a Wrap! Veggie Burger Wrap that is!

Posted on June 24, 2014 by Sherri

It seems like just when baseball season ends, it starts all over again. My younger son is a high school baseball player, he loves the game. Around our house, it feels like the season never really ends and is year round. If he’s not on the field for school ball, he’s conditioning, playing travel ball, taking lessons, at a baseball camp, working with the recreational league and the little kids, or watching it on television. With all the baseball it’s sometimes difficult to get a healthy meal pulled together for everyone quickly. One thing you should know about me as we begin this journey together – we are not a fast food family. Difficult for some people to believe, but it’s 100% true. Here is what we will get at drive through windows: Frosty’s and baked potatoes at Wendy’s, or iced tea. Chipoltle’s is the closest thing to fast food my family eats on the outside. Even as a kid, my parents never took us to eat in fast food restaurants. The only exception was pizza and that was also the only time I was allowed to drink soda! However, I don’t consider pizza fast food, but that’s a story for another day!

SONY DSC

Okay, now back to the game! Since baseball games are usually scheduled at dinner time, it’s a real challenge to eat something quick and healthy or that can travel well to a baseball game. I’ve been known to bring salad with a nice piece of grilled salmon on top but I have to be honest, it’s not the easiest thing to eat at the field! So dinner during the high point of the season means some kind of sandwich but if you’re watching your carbs and trying to eat a healthy diet, that’s not always the best choice. However, sandwiches can be a great choice if you choose the right ingredients. Many years ago I went to at nutritionist and she gave me some great idea’s for healthy sandwiches. This is one of them.

Her favorite sandwich is a veggie burger wrap. It’s really easy and reminiscent of a falafel (middle-eastern vegetarian chickpea sandwich served in a pita bread). Here’s how you make it with a recipe for one, multiply as needed. As for the bread, use any kind of wrap bread you like; it can be 1/2 of a pita, a tortilla, a roll-up style flat-bread, or lavash. If you don’t like wraps, feel free to use a whole wheat sandwich bun or English muffin. I hope you Enjoy this as much as my family and I do!

Fill with the following:

1 veggie burger cooked as per directions on the package (I like Dr. Praeger’s California Burger)
1 wrap
2 to 3 tablespoons hummus
Shredded romaine lettuce (a good handful)
1 to 2 slices tomato
Sliced cucumber (optional)

Spread the hummus on the wrap. Add the lettuce, veggie burger (cut to fit), and tomato on the top of one side. Now can roll the sandwich tightly but be careful not to break the wrap as you roll. What I have used here is something I found at Whole Foods called Roll-ups. Usually I use whole wheat tortillas since they are easy to find in the grocery. But, this is a very versatile recipe so use what you like. You can add whatever kind of veggie burger you like and salad filling. They are great in a lunchbox or on the field! I like to wrap them in wax paper then aluminum foil so that it cuts down on anything that might drip out of the open end of the sandwich. Let me know how you like to make a healthy sandwich. I’d like to try your recipe and share it on my blog! Enjoy!