I, like most people or anything with taste buds, love burgers. However, yet another thing vegans forgo when pursuing a cleaner healthier lifestyle. Since we made the decision to eliminate (most) animal products from our diet (most of the time), we have found and created countless amazing new recipes and foods and ways of eating! It is not a feeling of ‘giving up’ food we used to enjoy, in fact it often feels too good to be true to be able to have the same kinds of meals we used to! For example, when we make burgers and fries (;

These are seriously so delicious!

Black Bean Burger
About 3 cups of cooked black beans (~2 cans)
About 1/2 medium sized onion
1-2 cloves of minced garlic
Olive oil
 1 Tbsp ketchup
2 Tbsp barbeque sauce
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp cayenne
1 tsp smoked paprika
salt and pepper to taste
1/3 cup bread crumbs

Now I would like to honestly say that my ketchup and barbeque sauce are always organic and free of refined sugars but in a pinch or when cooking at someone else’s house, some things tend to fall by the wayside. Regardless, do what you can! As for the oil, you can use whatever oil you have on hand whether it is grapeseed, olive, or coconut, anything with a high smoke point.

Moving on to the cooking. Chop your onion and garlic and saute it all together until the onion is slightly tender and somewhat translucent. While that’s going, you can start throwing some other stuff in your blender or food processor: half of the black beans, ketchup, barbeque sauce, cumin, oregano, cayenne, and paprika. Add in the sauteed onion and garlic and blend until you have a thick pasty consistency. You can keep some (like a quarter) of the onions out and add them later if you are going for that kind of texture.

Plop your goo into a mixing bowl and add the bread crumbs and the rest of the beans. NOTE: before adding your beans, canned or not, be sure they are not too wet or damp from rinsing so if you need to wash them a little ahead of time or lay them on a towel to get them dry, you don’t need the extra moisture!

Using a rubber spatula, mix in the rest of the beans, bread crumbs, and onions if you have them, until totally incorporated, now you are ready to start making patties. I get 4 good, full sized patties out of this recipe so feel free to adjust as needed.

At this point, if you are ready to cook them, go right ahead. If you are making them ahead of time, stacking them with pieces of wax paper to separate and storing them in the fridge will actually help them set up little more and hold together when you do cook them. I have not tried freezing them (they never last that long), but I would worry about how they would thaw out post freezing- the freezer tends to break down some things and they may turn to mush

Cooking! Pour about an 1/8 of an inch or so of oil in your pan and get it heated, I usually give it a while to warm up on about medium heat. When it is hot enough you are ready to add your patties. Cook them about 2-3 minutes on each side, or until they similar to the photo.

 And of course Calloway was my little helper, as in helping eat the majority of an avocado while I cooked.

Luckily we had plenty more because they are our cheese replacement (; Spread a little Vegenaise and maybe ketchup on a whole grain bun, top with avocado and spinach or lettuce of your choice and try not to hork all four down by yourself!