Vegan Chickpea Black Bean Lentil Burger

I have been a burger Gal as long as I can remember, but grown rather picky with my sandwiches along the line. After going vegan, I wanted to create a solid plant burger that would be packed with a fresh flavor and hit home with every single bite. And this vegan chickpea black bean lentil burger will do that.

Even though the recipe seems labor-intensive, you will notice that all the work will pay off in the end. I have considered your future efforts and made the recipe yield a small army, as we know from the experience that you might want to have a second sandwich. The recipe makes eight large patties.

Ingredients

Burger Patty

• black beans
• chickpeas
• red lentils
• coconut oil
• white mushrooms
• quick oats
• red onion
• garlic
• white sesame seeds
• pickle juice
• soy sauce
• mustard
• apple cider vinegar
• turmeric
• cayenne pepper
• thyme
• smoked paprika
• cornflour

Toppings

• eggplant
• lime
• vegan mayo
• oat fraiche
• fresh cilantro
• pea sprouts
• radishes
• avocado
• salt
• pepper

Use your favorite Buns! I got these bad boys from the local market! 

In my opinion, burgers exist to make us happy. Are you with me? As this was my first vegan burger recipe for Sultry Vegan Blog, I wanted to be sure you’d fancy it. Therefore I set up a test kitchen, had my younger sister and her boyfriend try it out. They gave me thumbs up, and now I am proudly sharing the recipe with you.

What are good burgers made of

Burgers are somewhat sacred to me, and there’s nothing more disappointing than a poorly executed vegan burger. Even though often labeled as junk food, burgers have never been more wanted, and especially vegan sandwiches are everywhere. It is the right time to be alive, don’t you think! What makes a burger unforgettable? Is it the combination of flavors, textures, or maybe condiments?

Multi-layered flavor and texture

The texture and taste are essential in a great plant burger. The reason why I chose to use all three; chickpeas, black beans, and lentils was my intention to make this vegan monster taste a little different. The trio makes a great base to start with, but the star of the show is something that I call the faux bacon, aka facon.

When I first made it, I was blown away by how tasty it turned out! This fake bacon builds up the flavor, adds some character to the bite, and gives a frame for the otherwise smooth bean paste.

How to make it

The facon was a successful experiment of mine. When I decided to make these burgers, I wanted to try something new to show you. I figured I needed to add some oomph to my sandwich and made this Umami potent faux bacon and making it takes only a little patience.

Start with chopping the mushroom small alike the onion and garlic. Start caramelizing it in a hot pan with coconut oil. After a few minutes, add mustard, pickle juice, apple cider vinegar, and soy sauce.

When pan-frying veggie patties, it is always important to handle them with patience and soft hands. How smooth the pattie mix is, depends on if you put mix it in a food processor or by hand. I prefer doing almost everything without the appliances.

Flour works as a binder and also helps you to create a crunchy surface around the soft patty center.

Add a drizzle of olive oil into a hot pan, reduce the heat to medium after 30 seconds or so. It might take longer than you think, but I promise it is worth the effort. These vegan patties don’t get dry, and when flipping them, use a sturdy but flexible spatula. If the patty breaks a little, you can always reshape it and put it back together if you’d like.

When frying the patties, the temperature and cooking time varies depending on the stove and pan you are using. Also, the thickness and diameter of it matter here. The best thing you can do is to observe and test what is the best pan and heat for this task.

What I like about thinly sliced and sauteed mushrooms are the crispy and a little chewy texture. When we treat every ingredient with appreciation and well be sure to receive a gift, in this case, you have a stunning burger that looks way too big to finish, but you won’t have any devouring it as before you notice it’s gone!

The fatty and creamy texture of eggplant, which must be inarguably my totem vegetable, feels almost like melted cheese when you bite into it.

Make the sauce with equal parts of vegan mayo and oat fraiche. Squeeze a bit of fresh lime in and mix. Be mindful with the consistency, you don’t want to make it too runny but just enough so that it will fall beautifully over the edges of the patty to create that fascinating look! I did not add any spices because I wanted to balance the other flavors with natural freshness.

The second best thing about burgers is that thrilling moment when you get to put all the fantastic components together, gently spread the bun with the sauce, scoop creamy avocado, spread some chewy mushrooms and thick fatty slices of eggplant.

My apologies, I had to stop for a moment to drool a little. And another one of my favorite vegetables is potato, and as you can see from the images, I made some simple oven-roasted scalloped potatoes with the burger.

Eat a rainbow, they say. This Burger is pretty close to it, at least as close to heaven!

Vegan chickpea black bean lentil burger is a messy one to eat. In case you don’t have burger pockets at hand, use coffee filters to keep the burger intact. Or do as I like to do it, go sustainably crazy with it, and dive all in! The mess tells a story of yet another delicious vegan meal to remember as you will end up licking your fingers no matter what I! Let me know how yummy your sultry burgers taste. In the meanwhile, I think I will whip up another sandwich.

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