Lentil Quinoa Veggie Burgers

Lentil Quinoa Veggie Burgers are a great Meatless Monday Vegetarian option!

During Lent, Dude checked out a vegetarian cookbook from the school library and wanted to make dinner one night.

He chose a recipe for Veggie Burgers.  He was excited because he’d found a veggie burger that didn’t include beans in any way.  It left me wondering what exactly the *were* made of. 

Upon closer inspection, I saw that the burgers relied on TVP or Textured Vegetable Protein.  I squinted suspiciously at the recipe, then went off to find out what fresh horror TVP could possibly be.

What I found out was that TVP is the “stuff” that leftover after soybeans have been processed to make soybean oil.  There is very little nutritional value, other than the high protein content.  TVP is often favored in vegan or vegetarian recipes because it supposedly has a “beef-like texture” when rehydrated.

None of these facts convinced me that I wanted to use TVP.  I don’t like soybeans at all and TVP sounds just as horrifying as I had suspected.

But spud reeeeeeally wanted to use his recipe.

So I managed to convince his that lentils are different from beans and that we could add quinoa for some additional protein and structure.

After blending together our first few ingredients, I realize the critical error we’d made in using freshly cooked lentils: our burger mixture was more like soup!

Never to be deterred, we simply squeezed out the extra moisture and continued on with our recipe!

I have to say – I was totally impressed with the burger we came up with!  Of all of the vegetarian burgers I’ve make, these ones held up the best (many veggie burgers fall apart or squish all over when you bite into them) and they were the most burger-like veggie burgers I’ve tasted.  Many veggie burgers don’t taste right with the standard ketchup & mustard toppings, but with these, the classics were perfect!

Without Dude’s insistence on making veggie burgers, I don’t know if I would have come up with these!

Here’s Dude:

My family LOVED it! (Including me.) It tasted SOOOOOO GOOD! We were AMAZED! I’m guessing that YOU’LL  love it to!

Recipe Note:

-Cook lentils & quinoa according to package instructions (cook lentils very soft).  I added a bouillon cube to the cooking water for both.

Lentil Quinoa Veggie Burgers

1 cup cooked lentils (see note)

1 cup cooked tri color quinoa (see note)

2 large carrots, shredded

1 small onion, chopped

½ red bell pepper, chopped

1 clove garlic, smashed

½ cup dry breadcrumbs

2 eggs

Salt & pepper

1 tbsp olive oil

Buns

Place the shredded carrots, onions, bell pepper, garlic, and lentils into the bowl of a food processor.  Process until blended.

Line a colander with cheese cloth (or paper towels, in a pinch).  Pour the mixture over the lined colander.  Let the mixture sit for 5 minutes while excess liquid drains off.  Gently squeeze out any remaining liquid.

Scrape the remaining lentil mixture into a bowl.  Stir in the eggs, breadcrumbs, quinoa, and salt & pepper until well combined.

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-low heat.  Divide the lentil mixture into 5-6 patties.  Place in the skillet and cook until browned on one side (optional: cover the skillet with a lip to speed up cooking).  Flip the patties and cook on the second side until browned.

Serve on buns with lettuce, ketchup & mustard.