Genius Recipes
The Secret to the Best Veggie Burgers Ever
With a garlicky vegan aioli to seal the deal.
Every week in Genius Recipes—often with your help!—Food52 Creative Director and lifelong Genius-hunter Kristen Miglore is unearthing recipes that will change the way you cook.
Poor veggie burgers. They have a whole lot of ground to make up in our imaginations. So many are crumbly and dry; others disintegrate as they hit the pan or squish out the back of the bun on first chomp.
So as I was reading Cool Beans, the stunning (and I mean stunning in every sense—it’s a glossy, glamorous, colorful bean book) new cookbook—out this week!—from Washington Post Food & Dining Editor Joe Yonan, I was delighted to read the following line:
Joe is, of course, correct. Chickpea-based falafel are, in a sense, vegan bean burgers by another name, and both are far simpler to make at home than I’d ever have thought.
The secret to the success of both is starting with dried beans, which are soaked but not simmered till tender. Tender beans are inherently mushy beans, especially once blended with onions and garlic and other moisture and flavor powerhouses. Only by binding them together with flour or other drying ingredients to compensate will they hold together in a patty. So pre-cooked beans leave you with a singular choice: mushy or dry. Pick your poison.
So don’t cook them! At least not in the sense you’re thinking. By soaking the dried beans overnight, you’re getting a head start on hydrating and tenderizing them, so all that’s left to do is blitz them into teeny pieces in a food processor (or, more traditionally, a meat grinder) and shallow-fry, crisping every craggy bit of exposed surface in good, hot oil.
I had to wonder, about both traditional falafel and Joe’s falafel burger: How do these seemingly uncooked beans have time to soften and cook through in a skillet at just 3 minutes per side? Simmering can take hours! Lucky for me, J. Kenji López-Alt over at the Food Lab at Serious Eats had chased down the answer himself years ago:
The trick is to remember that cooking beans is a two-step process. One step is adding water (hydration), while the second step is adding heat (actual cooking). To get tender, cooked chickpeas, you need to complete both steps. But nobody ever said they have to be done at the same time.
Instead of chickpeas, Joe swaps in black beans and the flavors he loves with them—the onion and garlic from their falafel namesake, plus chipotle and cilantro—then folds in a bit of mashed sweet potato, for extra moisture and binding power. Aside from remembering to soak the beans ahead and leaving your patties time to chill and set up, all of this happens in moments, so you’ll have plenty of time to buzz up his garlicky aquafaba aioli, too.
The result is a veggie burger that will be unlike any you’ve had before: A crispy, golden shell. A tender, but not mushy, interior. Enough flavor and texture that you don’t even need to toast the bun.
A fully vegan burger—with no ground to make up—that everyone will love just as it is.
| 1 | cup dried black beans (do not substitute—see food safety note above), soaked overnight and drained |
| 1/2 | cup chopped white onion |
| 1/2 | cup lightly packed chopped cilantro leaves and tender stems |
| 4 | garlic cloves, chopped |
| 2 | teaspoons kosher salt |
| 2 | teaspoons ground chipotle chile (or substitute 2 teaspoons adobo sauce from canned chipotles in adobo) |
| 1 | cup mashed, cooked sweet potato (the easiest way is to poke the potato with a fork, microwave till soft, then peel and mash) |
| grapeseed or other neutral vegetable oil, for frying | |
| 8 | soft burger buns, such as brioche or potato rolls, (optionally) lightly toasted |
| 1/2 | cup Chickpea Aioli (recipe follows) or vegan or traditional mayonnaise |
| Mustard, ketchup, or both (your choice) | |
| 8 | leaves romaine or iceberg lettuce |
| Flesh of 2 ripe avocados, sliced | |
| 1 | small red onion, thinly sliced |
| 2 | tomatoes, sliced |
| 1 | cup dried black beans (do not substitute—see food safety note above), soaked overnight and drained |
| 1/2 | cup chopped white onion |
| 1/2 | cup lightly packed chopped cilantro leaves and tender stems |
| 4 | garlic cloves, chopped |
| 2 | teaspoons kosher salt |
| 2 | teaspoons ground chipotle chile (or substitute 2 teaspoons adobo sauce from canned chipotles in adobo) |
| 1 | cup mashed, cooked sweet potato (the easiest way is to poke the potato with a fork, microwave till soft, then peel and mash) |
| grapeseed or other neutral vegetable oil, for frying |
| 8 | soft burger buns, such as brioche or potato rolls, (optionally) lightly toasted |
| 1/2 | cup Chickpea Aioli (recipe follows) or vegan or traditional mayonnaise |
| Mustard, ketchup, or both (your choice) | |
| 8 | leaves romaine or iceberg lettuce |
| Flesh of 2 ripe avocados, sliced | |
| 1 | small red onion, thinly sliced |
| 2 | tomatoes, sliced |
| 1 | garlic clove |
| 1/4 | cup aquafaba (from one 15-ounce can of no-salt-added chickpeas) |
| 2 | tablespoons cooked or canned no-salt-added chickpeas |
| 3/4 | teaspoon Dijon mustard |
| 1/2 | teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste |
| 3/4 | cup grapeseed or other neutral vegetable oil |
| 1 | tablespoon fresh lemon juice, plus more to taste |
| 1 | garlic clove |
| 1/4 | cup aquafaba (from one 15-ounce can of no-salt-added chickpeas) |
| 2 | tablespoons cooked or canned no-salt-added chickpeas |
| 3/4 | teaspoon Dijon mustard |
| 1/2 | teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste |
| 3/4 | cup grapeseed or other neutral vegetable oil |
| 1 | tablespoon fresh lemon juice, plus more to taste |
Got a genius recipe to share—from a classic cookbook, an online source, or anywhere, really? Perhaps something perfect for beginners? Please send it my way (and tell me what's so smart about it) at [email protected]. Thank you to Basically boss and cool bean Sarah Jampel for this one!
From our new podcast network, The Genius Recipe Tapes is lifelong Genius hunter Kristen Miglore’s 10-year-strong column in audio form, featuring all the uncut gems from the weekly column and video series. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts so you don’t miss out.
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Written by: Kristen Miglore
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