I love the combination of sweet potatoes and black beans. I’m always looking for new ways to use these ingredients that are a staple in my kitchen and these vegetarian burgers turned out wonderfully. The sweetness of the potatoes and the earthiness of the black beans gives you a satisfyingly hearty burger. It’s so yummy it might just make you forget about a juicy beef burger dripping with cheese and topped with bacon!
All you need to do is cook the sweet potatoes, I usually just pop them in oven with the skins on but you could boil or steam if you prefer. Then mix together the sweet potatoes, black beans and whatever spices you fancy. To bind the mixture I love to add cooked quinoa but if you want a faster approach then wholemeal breadcrumbs are perfect. These burgers are made even healthier by being grilled in the oven rather than fried.
I had about five seconds to photograph these burgers. As much as I wanted to, I figured it wasn’t wise to keep a man training for a marathon who had just run 38 kilometres waiting for his lunch!
- 2 medium sized sweet potatoes
- 1 400g can black beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 white onion, diced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 chilli, finely chopped
- ¼ cup sweet corn, drained
- ½ cup quinoa
- 1 tablespoon cumin
- 1 handful fresh coriander
- ½ teaspoon cracked black pepper
- Preheat oven to 180 degrees
- Put sweet potatoes in the oven and roast until tender. Usually takes around 45 minutes
- Heat olive oil in a frying pan, add chopped onion and garlic and cook for a couple of minutes
- Add quinoa to boiling water and cook for around 10 minutes. Strain and set aside
- Once sweet potato and quinoa are cooked, add to a large bowl along with black beans, corn, cumin, coriander, and chili and mash well until mixture is combined
- Form into patties about the size of your palm
- Line a roasting tray with tin foil and put under the grill for around 7 minutes on each side
Have you tried it without the Quinoa? Is there anything else that I may use as a substitute? I have all the other ingredients.
You could use some wholewheat bread crumbs instead of
quinoa. Basically it just acts as a binding agent to hold everything together. You can make breadcrumbs yourself easily if you have a food processor. Let me know how they turn out.