Sweet and Spicy

My body has been craving vegetarian meals lately and silly me, I have neglected that voice in my belly... until tonight. A black bean burger was on my mind since last night. Tonight, I romanced my taste buds with one of the best black bean burgers I have ever tasted.

Photo courtesy of the Eat, Live, Run who created this boyfriend-approved spicy black bean burger. 

Spicy Black Bean Burgers

Recipe courtesy of Eat, Live, Run

Ingredients:

2 cans black beans, drained and rinsed

1 T ground flax + 3 T water or 1 egg

1 jalapeno

2 cloves garlic

2 T tomato sauce

1/2 cup Panko breadcrumbs

2 tsp cumin

1 1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup corn (fresh or frozen and defrosted)

avocado for topping

olive oil (or canola oil) for frying burgers

Directions:

Seed and roughly chop jalapeno. Add it and the garlic cloves to a food processor (or high speed blender) and mince finely.

Add one can of beans to the jalapeno/garlic mixture and pulse to combine. Add cumin and salt and pulse until mixture resembles chunky black bean dip.

In a small bowl, mix together the ground flax and water. Let sit for five minutes. (this is an egg substitute)

Transfer the mixture in the food processor to a large bowl and stir in the bread crumbs, tomato sauce, flax and corn. Stir well until everything is combined. Add remaining black beans.

Heat a little olive oil in a skillet on medium high heat. Form black bean mixture into patties and fry for about 4 minutes per side, until golden and crusty brown.

I served my burger on a TJ multi grain sandwich slim with a healthy (humungo) side of ketchup. 

Along with a side of strawberry, almond and sunflower seed salad. Perfection. Sweet perfection to balance out my spicy burger.

It is so rare to go out to a restaurant and find a veggie burger that tastes half as good as this recipe. Seriously. Make this for any one of your friends or family who is a die hard meat lover. They will fall in love. 

PS. Thank you Alyssa for making this for your meat and potato boyfriend so I could copy cat this recipe! I am hooked!