Adzuki Vegetable Burgers

 

Adzuki Vegetable Burgers

 

By Namit Kathoria

 

Preparation time: 20-25 min

Cooking time: 25-30 min

Makes 5-6 servings

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 small handful of kale washed and shredded

1 small handful of spinach washed and shredded

125g of any combination of shitake mushrooms and chestnut mushrooms finely chopped

125-175g of crushed wholegrain nachos (try to remove as much salt as you can from the surface of the nachos before crushing)

3 tablespoons tamari

¼ teaspoon black pepper

¼ teaspoon Cayenne pepper

2 teaspoons ras el hanout/garam masala spice mix

1 bunch of fresh coriander washed and finely chopped

2 tablespoons miso paste

1 jar (500g) adzuki beans drained and rinsed

3 tablespoons nutritional yeast

1-2 chillies finely chopped (optional)

2 tablespoons tomato puree

1 green pepper finely chopped

2 small red onions finely chopped

3 garlic cloves grated

 

Preparation:

1. Heat up one tablespoon of the olive oil to a medium to high heat, put in one piece of the onion. When it starts to sizzle, fry the onion and the green pepper together for 3-4 minutes. Stir constantly to make sure nothing sticks to the pan and that there is no burning.
2. Add in the mushrooms, the kale, the spinach and the grated garlic together with the tamari. Carry on cooking and stirring for about 4 minutes.
3. Allow the mixture to cool down for about 5-10 minutes.
4. In the meantime, take a large bowl, crush the nachos (starting with 125g) and add in the beans, the nutritional yeast, the tomato puree, the miso, the chillies (if you are using them), the spices and the rest of the ingredients. Take a potato masher and mash up the adzuki beans, they should not be completely mashed up though as you need a certain constituency for the burgers to form i.e. you should be able to see some adzuki beans still whole. Now take a fork and mix everything together.
5. Add the cooked mixture to the mixture in the bowl, continue to mix with a fork and taste. Add in more of the spices or miso if you feel that they still need putting in. Then refrigerate for about 5-10 minutes.
6. Form the mixture into small golf ball sized balls, then flatten them out into the burgers.
7. Heat up about ½ a tablespoon of olive oil, put the burgers onto the frying pan and shallow fry them on a medium to high heat for about 2-3 minutes on each side, so that they get crispy on both sides. You should have space to do about 3-4 burgers per batch. There should be enough mixture to make around 5 batches in total.
8. Serve the burgers with vegan mayonnaise, a wholegrain bun and salad.

 

Where does your protein come from?

The mixture of the adzuki beans and the wholegrain nachos will give you all the essential amino acids that your body needs. As well as this, you have more in the nutritional yeast.

 

To get more inspiration for healthy plant-based recipes please see our new nutrition and recipe book “Life” which is due to come out in 2022.