Veggie burgers have a bad rap for being a nasty little tasteless piece of frozen cardboard. It doesn’t have to be.
I took a bunch of my favorite flavors, mixed them together and ended up this really great Mushroom Grain Burger. It’s packed with protein from the quinoa and good fat from the sunflower seeds.
As with most veggie burgers, you need to be gentle with these. They do hold their shape fairly well once cooked and but are delicate during forming. And probably not meant to eaten on a bun. I also froze a few uncooked patties to see how they would hold up – they pretty much fell apart in the pan while cooking. However, I dropped in a couple of eggs and ended up with super yummy hash scrambled eggs.
You try these deliciously healthy vegetarian burgers now, and I’ll keep working on a version that can withstand the grill!
Happy eating,
~Monique
Try these with my Pineapple Red Pepper Salsa.
Mushroom Grain Burger
1/4 cup diced red onion
1 1/2 cup diced shitake mushroom
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tsp fresh thyme
1/2 cup cooked brown rice
1/2 cup cooked quinoa
2 Tbls fresh parsley
3/4 cup roasted red pepper, diced
1/4 cup sunflower seeds
2 Tbls chopped jalapeno
1 tbls olive oil
1 egg
salt and pepper to tast
Heat the oil in a pan over medium heat, add the onion. Cook a few minutes and then add the mushrooms, toss well and continue to cook another 5-7 minutes. Add in the red pepper and garlic, toss well. Cook about 3 more minutes and remove from heat. Pour the mixture into a bowl and cool.
To the bowl add the brown rice, quinoa, parsley, Jalapeno, egg and thyme. Add a good pinch of salt and pepper, toss to combine. Place half of the mixture in a mini food processor, pulse to really mince everything up. Return the minced portion to the bowl and toss well with the unminced portion.
Note: You can skip this step but it does help slightly with holding the patties together.
Carefully form small veggie burger patties, the mixture will be wet and somewhat loose. Place the patties in a hot pan with a good drizzle of olive oil. Don’t move the patties until the bottom side has formed a crust. These will fall apart easily but once they are cooked they hold a decent shape. Carefully flip the patties to cook and form a crust on the 2nd side.
Remove from pan and enjoy! OR, scramble it up with an egg and call it hash- it works either way!