A recipe: Black Bean Burgers

I've had a hankering lately for some veggie burgers, but I hate to buy the pre-made ones sold in the grocery store, so I got ambitious and made my own!  Below is the recipe I used, which came from Allrecipes.com, my favorite recipe website!

Black Bean Burgers

1 16 oz. can black beans, drained and rinse

½ green bell pepper, cut into chunks

½ onion, cut into wedges

3 cloves garlic, peeled

1 egg

1 tbsp. chili powder

1 tbsp. cumin

1 tsp. Thai chili sauce or hot sauce

½ cup bread crumbs

Instructions

1. If grilling, preheat an outdoor grill for high heat, and lightly oil a sheet of aluminum foil.  If baking, preheat oven to 375 degrees, and lightly grease a baking sheet.

2. In a medium bowl, mash black beans with a fork until thick and pasty.

3. In a food processor, finely chop the bell pepper, onion and garlic.  Stir into mashed beans

4. In a small bowl, whisk together the egg, chili powder, cumin, and chili sauce.

5. Stir the egg mixture into the mashed beans.  Mix in bread crumbs until the mixture is sticky and holds together.  If it appears to be too wet, add more bread crumbs.  Divide mixture into 4ths and shape into patties.

6. If grilling, place patties on foil, and grill about 8 minutes on each side.  If baking, place patties on baking sheet and bake about 10 minutes per side.

While I thought these were delicious, I want to experiment a little bit with the seasonings.  They weren’t overly spicy, but I think there was too much chili powder.  I’d like to play around with trying different things, perhaps by adding some taco seasoning instead of the cumin and chili powder.  The possibilities are endless.

What’s nice about these is that they freeze very well.  I cooked one for myself right after making the mixture, and froze the other three in between sheets of parchment paper so that I can easily take one out for myself for lunch or dinner.