Although we pig out from time to time, I am grateful to have a boyfriend that encourages me to eat healthy. He has aspirations to be vegan one day, so through this transition phase, we are always finding ways to cut down on meat or cut it out completely. Here’s an alternative meal that even meat enthusiasts will love.
Bean Patties! And they are very simple and inexpensive to make. All you need is burger buns, a can of black beans, ½ green pepper, ½ onion, 3 cloves of garlic, 1 egg, ½ cup of breadcrumbs, 1 tsp hot sauce, 1 tbsp chili powder, 1 tbsp cumin, and *¼ cup of milk (optional).
- Preheat oven to 375 ᵒF
- The original recipe calls for a food processor, but if you don’t have one, we modified the recipe by just dicing the green pepper, onion, garlic.
- Drain the beans and put in a separate bowl. With a fork mash the beans until they get a ground beef consistency.
- Mix in the diced vegetables into the bean mixture. If you have food processor the vegetables will have an almost liquid consistency and will mix a little easier into the beans.
- In another bowl, crack the egg and mix in the hot sauce, chili powder and cumin. Then mix into the bean mixture.
- Add breadcrumbs and mix all together. *For those that do not have a food processor you might notice that mixture is kind of lumpy and hard to stir. Add in the milk to smooth it out.
- With your hands form 4 patties with the bean mixture and place on a baking sheet coated with cooking spray. And place in the oven for twenty minutes. Flip patties after 10 minutes.
- Once out of the oven place on burger buns (I recommend potato buns if you’ve never tried it) and add condiments, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, or whatever else you like. Enjoy!
I cook most of the time because it is the cheaper option, but it isn’t something I necessarily enjoy doing. I’m sure I sound like a middle-aged suburban mom sharing a recipe and believe me I won’t do it very often, but whatever they were so good that I wanted to share it. Feel free to modify it to your liking.