Bistro Beet Burgers Recipe

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Isa Chandra Moskowitz is a pioneer of delicious vegan cuisine, with a ton of cookbooks under her belt and a recent superb one, Isa Does It: Amazingly Easy, Wildly Delicious Vegan Recipes for Every Day of the Week. She also stepped in front of the camera for a fun series of YouTube videos for Breville (and produced by FR parent company, Zero Point Zero). Try your hand at her vegan beet burgers. We guarantee you won't miss the meat.

Well, everyone loves burgers, and this is a fine, upstanding burger-citizen made with some of my favorite ingredients: brown rice, lentils, and beets! They combine to form the perfect storm of vegan burgerness. It's not that they taste exactly like hamburgers or anything, but they do taste exactly like awesome veggie burgers. Rice provides hearty texture, to give you a substantial bite. Lentils are my go-to ground meat, so they were a natural addition. And beets give the burgers an intense (and vaguely disturbing) meat-like appearance, but they also add a lot of flavor, earthy and slightly sweet. Just something that takes your VB to the next level. And don't forget the fries!

Bistro Beet Burgers Recipe
No Ratings
Prep Time
30
minutes
Cook Time
15
minutes
Servings
6
burgers
Ingredients
  • 1 1/4 cups cooked and cooled brown rice
  • 1 cup brown or green lentils
  • 1 cup shredded beets
  • 1/2 cup very fine dry breadcrumbs
  • 3 tablespoons onion
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • 2 tablespoons smooth almond butter
  • 1 teaspoon dried thyme
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground fennel
  • 1 teaspoon dry mustard
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • freshly ground black pepper
  • olive oil
  • 6 burger buns
Directions
  1. Put the brown rice, lentils, and shredded beets in the work bowl of a food processor fitted with a metal blade and pulse 15 to 20 times, until the mixture comes together but still has texture. It should look a lot like ground meat.
  2. Now transfer to a large bowl and add the bread crumbs, onion, garlic, almond butter, thyme, fennel, mustard, salt, and pepper. Use your hands to mix very well. Everything should be well incorporated, so get in there and take your time; it could take a minute or two.
  3. Place the mixture in the fridge for 30 minutes to chill.
  4. Preheat a cast-iron pan over medium-high heat. Now form the patties. Use 1⁄3 cup of the mixture for each patty and form into 3⁄4-inch-thick disks. 
  5. Pour a very thin layer of oil into the pan and cook the patties for about 12 minutes, flipping occasionally. Drizzle in a little more oil as needed. The burgers should be charred at the edges and heated through.
  6. Serve warm on buns with toppings! They taste pretty great reheated as well, so if you want, cook them in advance, refrigerate, then gently heat in the pan later. 
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