Lucky for me, I have a best friend who loves cooking so I let her test out the recipes and then pass the good ones along to me 😉 Well, after I heard her rave about these black bean burgers, I had to try them out for myself asap.

The recipe is from Food and Wine so feel free to check it out there if you want more details on the preparation and on how to make the suggested dressing. The prep itself though is pretty easy, you just mash 2 cans of black beans in a large bowl and stir in the other ingredients. Yeah, pretty simple. So, the ingredients are as follows:

• 2 x 14 1/2-ounce cans black beans, drained
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup red onion, finely diced
• 1 clove of garlic, minced
• 1/2 cup bread crumbs (I substituted panko)
• 1/2 teaspoon cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne
• 1/4 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 tablespoon butter (I substituted olive oil)

So after you set the oven to 350 degrees, you mash the black beans up until they form a paste…leaving a few pieces unmashed for a better texture. And yes, this requires a little bit of elbow work.

Black bean paste

I know it doesn’t look super appetizing at this point, but trust me, you won’t be disappointed in the end. Okay, so after making the paste you just stir in the rest of the ingredients. Sorry, no photo for this step. I also had sweet potato fries baking in the oven and got a little flustered trying to coordinate everything. I’m clearly no expert in the kitchen, but I do try! Anyways…

Then put the butter or olive oil in a large skillet and turn on to medium heat. Then make six individual patties from the paste and cook them on each side until browned (the recipe says 4-5 minutes on each side, but I did mine for about 7 minutes, just keep an eye on them).

Cook patties until browned on each side

The last step is just placing them in your preheated oven for about 6 minutes. If you want to add cheese, do it now so it will melt in the oven. I opted to top the burgers with fresh guacamole and sprouts instead (another idea I cannot take credit for, thanks Nora)! But seriously, these burgers we pretty simple to put together and taste amazing! I’ll definitely be taking the extras for lunch tomorrow. Enjoy! xx