Adapted from The Best Black Bean Burgers I’ve Ever Had. I was really pleased with these ones — good flavour, good consistency, crispy even though just baked, didn’t fall apart.

The recipe goes to lengths to highlight the importance of reducing moisture, to make a burger that doesn’t fall apart.

Ingredients

  • 580g drained, cooked black beans (soak for 12 hours, changing water halfway through, add water just above level of beans, pressure cook for 15 mins on high), rinsed and patted dry
  • Half a cup feta (didn’t have, used 100g of grated mozzarella from a bag)
  • Half a big green pepper, finely chopped
  • 2 large eggs
  • Corn (this was my addition), drained and patted dry — a small tin will be plenty
  • Half a large onion, finely chopped
  • 3 garlic cloves, minced
  • Half a cup breadcrumbs
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • One and a half teaspoons ground cumin
  • 1 teaspoon chili powder (didn’t have, used spicy paprika)
  • Half a teaspoon garlic powder
  • Quarter teaspoon smoked paprika
  • 2 tablespoons ketchup
  • Splash of soy sauce (like half a teaspoon or something, I used this instead of Worcestershire sauce, don’t know if it did anything)
  • Pinch of salt and pepper

Steps

  1. Preheat oven to 160C. Spread beans evenly onto a baking tray and bake for 15 minutes until slightly dried out.
  2. Sauté olive oil, chopped pepper, onion, and garlic over medium heat until peppers and onions are soft, about 5-6 minutes. Gently blot some of the moisture out.
  3. Place in a large bowl or in a food processor with the remaining ingredients (cumin, chili powder, garlic powder, smoked paprika, bread crumbs, cheese, eggs, worcestershire, ketchup, salt, and pepper). Pulse until well mixed (I did it to the point of becoming a paste, basically).
  4. Add the black beans and mash with a fork, leaving plenty of good chunks of beans.
  5. Add some corn (eyeball the amount) — I don’t know how adding this affects the moisture, so don’t overdo it.
  6. Best to put mixture in the fridge for a bit to make it easier to form into patties.
  7. Form into bun-sized patties, with a decent thickness. (It’s nice to make them to a size that matches the bun you’re going to use.)
  8. Bake at 190C for 10 minutes on each side.

Serving

The burger is (at least the first time around) not the moistest of things, and could do with a bit of external moisture and freshness. Something with avocado and citrus, and a little bit of dressed salad, does the trick.

Dried to cooked beans conversion

1kg dried black beans gave 1959g soaked beans and 2093g cooked beans

Cooking from frozen

We tried just freezing them raw.

We tried it in the oven, took ages. Tried in the airfryer, took less time, just need to make sure to wait for it to get pretty solid on the bottom before trying to flip or it will just fall apart.