I don’t know about you, but now that days are hot and summertime is officially upon us, I’ve got a hankerin’ for a good burger. As we fire up our grills for the season, I’m on a mission. I want to make to the most outrageous, delicious, veggie burger on the planet. I have to admit, before now, I’ve never made a homemade veggie burger. I’m not sure exactly why. Perhaps because it’s just too easy to pull out a frozen veggie burger and slather it up with all the juicy fixins— ketchup, mustard, pickles, tomatoes, avocado, green chili— and voila— summertime burger! But still, those boxified veggie burgers can’t possibly be as good as homemade veggie burgers, can they? I’ve had some good ones, and some bad ones. I guess it’s the principle of it— I rarely eat pre-packaged, pre-made foods, so why do I settle for frozen veggie burgers? I’m certain home-made burgers would be better for us, and would probably taste a whole lot better too. But let’s face it, when it’s 4pm on a Saturday afternoon, and your friends call you over for an impromptu BBQ, what are going to do? Run inside and whip up a homemade veggie burger? Probably not.

So, I got to thinking. What if I could make really outrageous veggie burgers and freeze them myself? This way I’ll have a stash of healthy burgers all summer long. Sounds like a good plan to me. Now, here’s the challenge— finding (or creating) a good recipe. I scoured the internet, and my cookbook collection, but much to my surprise, there weren’t many veggie burger recipes. I found a handful, and only a few of them interested me. So what’s a girl to do? I decided the best approach would be to create my own recipe and figure out just what makes a good veggie burger good.

Where’s the beef? or What is it if it’s not meat?

Contrary to its common calling, vegetables are generally not the primary ingredient in veggie burgers. I love most veggies, but I don’t really want to have a patty that tastes like broccoli or sweet potatoes. On the other hand, I also don’t want to have something that pretends to taste like beef. What I want is something that tastes good, made without animal products, and holds together so I can eat it in my hands like a traditional burger. It should be flavorful on its own terms, and should go well with the traditional burger embellishments. Is that too much to ask?

So if it’s not a broccoli burger, what is it?  Most veggie burger recipes I found are made with nuts, grains or beans as the main ingredient. Nutritionally, this sounds like a great idea. And even better, these ingredients have the ability to carry wonderful flavors and provide that ‘meaty’ substance that we crave from a good burger.  Perhaps the biggest challenge is going to be to create a burger that holds together and has good texture.

In order to make the most outrageous veggie burger, there are several important criteria that need to be met. Here’s what I’m looking for:

1. Taste
2. Texture/Substance
3. Grill-ability
4. Freeze-ability (actually, this should be called thaw-ability)

My first veggie burger recipe was inspired by a Mushroom Pecan Burger recipe on Epicurious. I liked the idea of using nuts as the main ingredient and loved the idea of mushrooms to give the burgers that wonderful, earthy taste. I was also excited to see parsley as one of the ingredients. I loosely followed this recipe with a few exceptions. The recipe called for hoisin sauce. I didn’t have any, nor was I particularly inspired by that ingredient, so I left it out. I also didn’t toast the nuts, but opted to use them raw in hopes of keeping moisture in the patty.

The process of making the burger was super easy. Sauté the onions, garlic and dried spices, and then add ingredients to food processor and go. In this case, go means process everything until you get the consistency you are looking for. Here’s what mine looked like:

I  didn’t want the burger mixture to be ground to a superfine meal, but I also didn’t want big chunks of nuts either. I ended up with a moist, somewhat fine, nut mixture.

And by the way, one of the great things about veggie burgers is that you can eat them raw! Yippee. The moment I tasted this, I was super excited. The flavors works so well together. Did you ever have the experience of making chocolate chip cookies as a kid… and the batter was so delicious that you would eat spoonfuls and spoonfuls of raw batter? Ooh yeah, baby. This veggie burger batter was delicious. Definitely an A+ for Taste.

The mixture was moist and formed into patties easily. They held together well enough, but I was a bit worried about how well they’d hold up on the grill.

I’d give these burgers a B- for grill-ability, but I managed to cook them without having them fall apart. The trick is having a hot grill, rub a small amount of oil on th grill before placing the patties, and refrain from flipping the patties over until they are seared on the bottom. With a little luck, you may just end up with some very groovy looking grill marks too!

As far as Veggie burgers go, this recipe was overall very good. Here’s how I graded it on my scorecard:

1. Taste: A+
   Excellent. Loved it raw. Loved it cooked. The mushrooms/pecan combo is excellent and the addition of sautéed onions and fresh parsley is absolutely divine.
2. Texture/Substance: B-
   The texture was a bit disappointing. I felt they were slightly mealy and didn’t have the firm bite that I long for in a burger.
3. Grill-ability: B-
   These burgers are bit delicate, but with a gentle hand, they’ll come off the grill in one piece.
4. Freeze-ability (thaw-ability): ?
   They were so good I ate them all and forgot to freeze them. I’ll have to try again and let you know.

Overall, I was quite happy with my first veggie burger from scratch. Stay tuned, I’ll be trying new recipes this summer and will share them all. In the meantime, I’d love to hear form you if you have a great veggie burger recipe that you’d like to share. Happy summer and happy grilling.

Mushroom Veggie Burger

Ingredients:
1 lb cremini or white button mushrooms
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
1 cup raw pecans
2 tablespoons tahini
2 cloves garlic, diced
1 large onion, chopped
1 Tbsp tamari (soy sauce)
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1 Tsp dried oregano

Method:
Sauté onion, oregano, and garlic until onions are soft and translucent.
Place nuts in the food processor and pulse to a course consistency.
Add remaining ingredients and pulse until all ingredients are blended.
Form patties and place in freezer for 20 minutes, before placing on hot grill.