Meal Monday
Are you having a Memorial Day barbecue? Have you invited any vegetarians? Then you might want to make some bean burgers.
They are not really that much work, and they are so much nicer to serve than frozen veggie patties. Your vegetarian guests will be grateful to have something to eat besides coleslaw, corn on the cob, and watermelon.
Here is a general tip: drain and rinse your canned beans very well, and then dry them very carefully. You burgers will hold together better because the mixture will be drier.
Even so, I would still recommend baking or sautéing these burgers ahead of time and then just reheating them when guests arrive. Bean burgers can be temperamental, falling apart when they are cooked. On the other hand, they reheat perfectly, holding their shape beautifully.
If you have made the burgers ahead of time, you will not be cursing under your breath as they disintegrate on the grill (and you have no fallback veggie burger to serve!). You will also be spared frustration if your vegetarian guests are reluctant to eat burgers cooked on a grill with beef.
I have some favorite bean burger recipes, but the 'net is rife with vegetarian burger options.
For a long time, my favorite bean burger was a recipe using red kidney beans. The recipe was basically two cans of beans mashed with an egg and a 1/2 cup of bread crumbs. You form four patties and cook them in a lightly greased nonstick skillet.
The recipe, I think, was originally from Woman's Day, but the magazine's website only has this recipe for Asian Bean Burgers, which is actually almost the same, but with some scallions, soy sauce, garlic, and ginger for an Asian twist. These should be really awesome. I think I would leave the ginger out, though, so the flavor is more generic bean burger and not so tied to an Asian flavor profile.
More recently, my favorite has been the Southwestern Black Bean Burger recipe from Good Housekeeping. I found the recipe in a cookbook called The 150 Best American Recipes.
The authors, Fran McCullough and Suzanne Hamlin have a series of books that contain the best recipes that have appeared online and in print. The burger recipe originally appeared in the 1999 edition of The Best American Recipes. It was reprinted in The 150 Best American Recipes, which was a retrospective best-of-the-best collection from the last several years. The authors say these simple-looking burgers are a cut above because the addition of a dash of mayo makes them super moist and rich.
My husband, a confirmed carnivore, loves these babies. The recipe is super easy, too.
Another advantage: the recipe can be vegan if you use a mayo made without eggs. Or you can leave out the mayo.
I had to branch out a little, so I tried the black bean burgers from Kim O'Donnel on a Mighty Appetite.
The burgers were good, but I still like the Good Housekeeping burgers the best.
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