Entertaining + Fun: Vegan Beet Burgers

From day one of this blog, I had the idea to make “fuss-free” vegan recipes, but it took me awhile before I really nailed down what that meant. In the beginning, I thought the best approach was to use no specific measurements and vague instructions for my recipes… Unsurprisingly, recipe testers had varied results. Yep, not the smartest idea I’ve ever had.

Vegan Beet Burgers! Quick and easy recipe for a hearty veggie burger with a perfect bite (not mushy). Egg-free, dairy-free, vegetarian. #itdoesnttastelikechicken

Luckily, it wasn’t long before I re-thought “fuss-free” and made it all about simple ingredients, and quick and easy recipes. That doesn’t mean that my original fuss-free recipes (if you can call them that), were bad, it just means there was a dreadful lack of guidance and poor food photography to boot.

So every now and then I like to go back in time and revise one of the original fuss-free recipes. I’ve done it before with my 6 Ingredient Pulled Jackfruit, and Lentil Tacos with Avocado Cilantro Sauce, and today I am doing it with these Vegan Beet Burgers.

Because omnomnom!! My first version for vegan beet burgers required too many ingredients, a couple of flavours were competing, and of course, some measurements would be helpful. I’ve taken it from 14 ingredients to just 10, made it simpler and quicker, and got those flavour notes on point.

The intense colour of these burgers is so neat, but what’s really rocking my socks is how the beets provide this deep rich earthiness to the burgers. So much flavour depth. The oats and lentils make a great base, and the sneaky trick is adding a bit of peanut butter which adds some richness and good fat balancing everything out perfectly.

When you make these, the dough is really sticky, but once cooked, they firm up and have a nice texture bite (no mushy burger here)!

To make Vegan Beet Burgers: peel the beets. I have a grater attachment for my Breville food processor so I used it to grate the beets directly into the processor. If you don’t have that, just grate beets with the grater you have.

Then just add the beets, along with all of the remaining ingredients to the food processor.

Pulse, stopping to scrape the sides, until the mixture comes together.

Form into 4 patties. The patty mixture will be very sticky, so wet your hands in between forming each patty, to help stop the sticking.

Then you can either fry or bake the burgers, until brown on the outside and tender on the inside.

Leftover burgers get quite firm in the fridge overnight, so I prefer mine freshly made. However, if you like a nice firm bite, you might enjoy them even more!