Makes 4 big burgers
Time: 1 hour 15 minutes || Active time: 30 minutes
You know the song, two all-beet patties, special sauce, lettuce, “cheeze”…har har.
Well, everyone loves burgers and this is a fine, upstanding, burger-citizen made with some of my favorite ingredients. Brown rice, lentils and beets! They all combine to form the perfect storm of vegan burgerness.
It’s not that they taste exactly like hamburgers or anything, but they do taste exactly like awesome veggie burgers. Rice provides awesome texture, to give you a substantial bite. Lentils are my go-to ground meat so they were a natural addition. And beets are the veggie burger hotness right now! I’ve tried beet burgers at many a restaurant, and I’ve been itching to come up with my own recipe. They give the burger an intense (vaguely disturbing) meat-like appearance, but they also add a lot of flavor, earthy and slightly sweet. Just something that takes your VB to the next level.
I like to make these burgers BIG. Ya’ know, dinner sized. In reading the Wikipedia about the history of the Quarter Pounder (or Royale With Cheese, for you Pulp Fiction fans), the inventor of the burger says he “felt there was a void in our menu vis-à-vis the adult who wanted a higher ratio of beet to bun.” OK, he said meat not beet, but whatever. And I have to agree. There’s a certain satisfaction to eating your way around the burger before digging in to a full-on bun bite.
To make these more fast-foody, top with shredded lettuce, sliced dill pickles, finely diced onion and ketchup. I would add a layer of avocado instead of a vegan cheese, but that’s just me. They really don’t even need it.
One very important part of this recipe is the cooking method. You want to get the burger charred. Not burnt, but charred, which really just means, uh, burnt only in some places. The best way to achieve this is with a very hot cast iron pan. Other pans may react different to high heat, and may not give you that perfect char. So if you’re not using a cast iron pan, the next best thing would be to transfer them to a baking pan after cooking, brush with oil and stick them under the broiler for a few minutes.
Recipe notes: If you’d like to make these gluten-free, just use gluten-free breadcrumbs – ground up gluten-free pretzels would be ideal. And if you’d like to bake them instead, do so at 375 F, 8 to 10 minutes each side, then stick under the broiler to brown them. If you’d like to use a different nut butter, I would recommend cashew or sunbutter. I think PB will be too strong, but who knows? I use a food processor to make these happen quickly, so you’ll have to do some finagling if you don’t have one. And one last tip: I keep a package of frozen brown rice handy at all times. It’s perfect for occasions like this when you just need a little bit for an ingredient.
And don’t forget the fries! Garlic Curry Fries are perfect with these. OK, it’s burgertime!
1 1/4 cups cooked, cooled brown rice (see recipe notes above)
1 cup cooked brown or green lentils, cooled, drained well
1 cup shredded beets
1/2 teaspoon salt
Fresh black pepper
1 teaspoon thyme, rubbed between your fingers
1/2 teaspoon ground fennel (or finely crushed fennel seed)
1 teaspoon dry mustard
3 tablespoons very finely chopped onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons smooth almond butter
1/2 cup very fine breadcrumbs
Olive oil for the pan
Peel beets and shred with the shredder attachment of your food processor, then set aside. Change the attachment to a metal blade. Pulse the brown rice, shredded beets and lentils about 15 to 20 times, until the mixture comes together, but still has texture. It should look a lot like ground meat:
Now transfer to a mixing bowl and add all the remaining ingredients. Use your hands to mix very well. Everything should be well incorporated, so get in there and take your time, it could take a minute or two.
Place the mixture in the fridge for a half hour to chill.
Preheat a cast iron pan over medium-high. Now form the patties. Each patty will be a heaping 1/2 cup of mixture. To get perfectly shaped patties, use a 3 1/2 inch cookie cutter or ring mold (I have pics of how to do it here.) Otherwise, just shape them into burgers with your hands.
Pour a very thin layer of oil into the pan and cook patties for about 12 minutes, flipping occasionally. Do two at a time if you’re pan isn’t big enough. Drizzle in a little more oil or use a bottle of organic cooking spray as needed. Burgers should be charred at the edges and heated through.
Serve immediately. But they taste pretty great heated up as well, so if you want to cook them in advance, refrigerate, then gently heat in the pan later on, then that is cool, too.
Most excellent. I like these better than any home-made veggie burger I’ve tried. The ingredients look so much like ground meat that I hesitated putting crumbs into our compost 😉
Since I’d only eat one of these at a time do you think uncooked patties would freeze well?
oops. Scrolled way down & found the answer to my freezing question. #nevermind
Quite possibly the best veggie burger ever, I loved it, Thank you for the recipe!!
Oh my goodness. These are soo deelish!
I’ve made them more than once and have loved them every time! what is the nutritional content breakdown?
This will probably not be posted because it’s a negative comment, but I wasn’t crazy about this burger, sorry!! a waste of good ingredients. I will stick with your Beet Burger recipe, which is awesome!!! but this one is a miss.
I post negative comments. This isn’t Russia in 1982.
The first time I made these I followed the recipe completely. They were great.
Tonight I used peanut butter, threw in some liquid smoke, and baked them in the oven cause it was too hot out to fry on my stove top. They were awesome!I I also subbed barley for brown rice, because that’s what I had. OM NOM NOM. The basic recipe is endlessly adaptable. Isa does it again.
Hooray!
I come back to this one time and time again. It is my favourite beet recipe (from anywhere) thus far. I have also shaped them into mini falafel sized morsels accompanied with hummus for parties and pita! Thanks Isa!
Burger obssession!
The real thing either kills or impairs your health.
Why feed the craving with fake burgers?
There are infinite ways to better nourish yourself with much tasties vegetable meals.
And, no white flour buns, c’mon.
Please tell me these are similar to the northstar veggie burger. Can’t wait to try!
Oh yes. I was thinking burgers this weekend but undecided on which way to go with them. Definitely this recipe! Thank you 🙂
OH DEAR GOD!!!!! These are so delicious, it’s hard to believe they can be so very good. I have been making them since the original post, and I still find my taste buds singing at the top of their little lungs (and they are VERY little) when I eat one of these bad boys. Have I told you lately how much I love you, Isa? Clearly, if I have to ask that question, I haven’t told you enough!!! I LOVE YOU!! Thank you so much for making these……
Can’t wait for Oct. 22nd!!
These are the best things ever! I added a little bit of liquid smoke to them too. Yum yum!
Really tasty, loved the sweetness from the beetroot. This I’ll leave the fennel out next time as they were a bit too aniseedy. However, that’s not stopping me having one for lunch today!
My boyfriend has made this recipe a few times and it’s really good! Tonight I did it again but I substituted quinoa for the rice and buckwheat flour for the breadcrumbs to make it gf. It turned out lovely! I just wanted to let everyone know that this variation worked as well as the original! Not quite as much bite but still really good!
Thanks Isa!
Hi there, I enjoy reading through your post. I wanted to write
a little comment to support you.
the taste of these burgers are cussing fantastic. however, i have made them at least three times and they are always super crumbly. is there anything that would help make them stay together better? more almond butter maybe?
Dear Isa….
I have been soo weary lately making vegan recipes.. Tasting them .. And then throwing them in the trash! But tonight… I had hope as I shredded the beets and diced my onion up for this burger. I cooked it in my trusty cast iron pan and when I took my first bite the angel choir started singing!! OMG!!!! Sooo GOOD!!! Thank you for this recipe which satisfied my stomach and my soul! Utter deliciousness!! You make me want to throw away all my vegan cookbooks except yours!! Love you Isa!!
I made these last night and am eating leftovers for lunch today. So amazing! I think I like the leftovers better as the flavors really settled nicely.
This did take me a while to make (cooking brown rice and lentils and then letting them cool). But it was totally worth it. Doubled to batch which worked great.
I really liked the flavor of these but they kind of fell apart, any suggestions?
Can you use canned beets?
I made these yesterday and they were amazing! They have such a savory flavor and such a wonderfully firm “bite” to them. This is a great recipe and now I’m thinking about making them for my day after Christmas dinner which is when my vegan tolerant friends come over for a surprise dinner.
My son and his wife in New York have just made these today…my mouth is watering at the sight.
The one downside of this though is that dark chocolate is quite bitter without
the sugar content, and so one variation to this recipe if you
do choose to go down this route is that you should also add in two tablespoons of a sugar free
substitute into the main ingredients of the Sugar Free Chocolate Smoothie in order for it to taste good.
Directions: Combine ingredients (except for chocolate chips) in blender and blend until smooth.
1 ripe banana 1 tablespoon of honey (not for children
under 1).
Just so you all know…I’m so excited it’s January…..there are beets galore!!!! Having just consumed my 175 millionth beet burger (from this recipe….only), I am in total love, and I mean LOVE with these beauties!!!! These are the bomb…so if you’re bumming about the cold, snow, and ice (who isn’t?)…make some of these burgers, make some oven roasted potatoes (cut ’em like fries) and have yourselves a carpet picnic. The days are getting longer…….
Oh, yeah, and Isa Does It ROCKS!!!!
So, i am not a vegan, please dont judge, but my guy and i are eating more veg and vegan alternatives. I have found that the few recipes that i have tried of yours are amazing and we dont even miss the meat really. Im making the beet burger tonight, and your Portobello burger from you book is so delicious we devoured them. Thank you for making vegan options so appetizing, and downright cravable.
Hey there, I wanted to tell you I made these burgers today and they were AWESOME. My family isn’t vegan…probably closer to paleo because of dairy/nut/egg/gluten allergies. But eating meat every meal gets really old (and expensive) and I came looking for a good non-meat dish. I had all the ingredients (or close enough) so I made a batch. Then I made 3 more batches and am currently frying them up in avocado oil and will freeze for lunches. I just didn’t have the fennel seeds, but you would never know. Also, the second batch I added Worcestershire sauce which I REALLY liked. Also, I used crushed rice chex cereal instead of the wheat crumbs, and I whipped up some sunflower butter to use which worked just perfectly. I grew up eating a lot of veggie burgers (pescatarian family) but I haven’t been able to buy most because of the gluten or soy (allergies again). So these worked with all those food restrictions. I’m looking forward to making the cheese, but I want to wait until I get some agar powder. Thanks again!
I just made these for my two-year old toddler and husband. The only thing I did differently is to sprinkle 1/4 teaspoon of Trader Joe’s South African Smoke Seasoning Blend and reduce the salt by 1/4 teaspoon. We all LOVED it and my son (a picky toddler) devoured it and kept signing for more. We love meat, and this is one of the first two we’ve tried from your website, and I must say, it tastes better than more meat burgers. Slowly changing our daily menus to healthier food for us and our son.
Made these tonight using golden beets, so I’m calling them sunshine burgers! So good!
do these burgers stay whole when frying? have tried half a dozen different beet recipes and they always fall apart in the pan.
I made two burgers out of the mix, topped with vegan mayo, lettuce, tomato, and avocado and it was amazing. But as i was making those dirst two burgers for myself and the hubs, i couldnt shake the desire to make tacos. And oh my gosh, it was unbelievable. Added come cumin, paprika, extra garlic powder fried it up like ground beef and topped some cute little corn tortillas with it. Added some lettuce, tomato, avocado, cheese, and hot sauce and i swear we could have eaten our body weight in tacos.
AWESOME!!
These are beyond anything I could have expected! So delicious and with such great texture! I had made them before but taught my daughter and her boyfriend how to make them last night. They were so impressed with the flavor and texture! We made a salsa of red onion, garlic, serrano chilis, lemon juice and salt…WOW! I can’t wait to make these again!
I made these today, my second batch of them, and they are excellent. It is a perfect recipe for using the multitudes of beets we received in our CSA share. I love beets, but there’s only so many times I want them roasted or added to a salad and I’ve never been a huge fan of borscht no matter how many ways I’ve tried it. But these burgers — perfect. The crunch of the onions and the addition of fennel gives them that extra 10% of tastiness. I also recommend the garlic curry fries that Isa links to above – a perfect pairing.
As an aside, I tried to pin one of the beet burgers but pinterest reports that the photos are not pinable.
Are these burgers “kid approved”? Would love to make this for my two picky eaters but I’m afraid they might notice the “beets for beef trick”.
I considered making these burgers for a long time, but was turned off by the amount of work it looked like especially because I don’t have a food processor. Today I made them, chopped the beets fine by hand and mixed everything with a hand mixer and they were terrific! Thank you for this wonderful recipe. I will certainly make them again.
This recipe was AMAZING! I love veggie burgers but this was better by FAR!! The fennel made it taste like a meat patty and the texture was great. Thank yoU!
Isa, you surely do Does It, don’t you!!! Thank you for putting these in your new (killer good) book!
I truly love these, and my omni roommate ate ALL OF MY LAST BATCH!!! The nerve!!! So here I am in the midst of a doozy of a storm (expecting 2 feet of snow!!) making a triple and a half recipe. Yes, my beet was that big!!!
You are the best, Isa…..
Delicious. I’ll be sharing your recipe tomorrow for meatless Monday. Will do them again definitely. Thanks!!!
Can you substitute rice for barley?
This is the most delicious veggie burger i’ve ever made. It is so easy, too! Every ingredient is worth it! Isa, you’re a genius!