After searching the rather tiny meat alternative section at the grocery store for some new meal ideas, I felt pretty confident that I could probably create my own veggie burgers that, if nothing else, where at least as good as those pre-made frozen ones on the shelves.

Let me tell you that there are many different approaches to veggie burgers out there and it took a great deal of time combing over recipes to finally find one that I thought would be a good basis for my own take on a veggie burger. I was searching for a recipe that might somewhat resemble an actual meat burger, but without the whole meat issue.

Adriano and I set to work making them for dinner last night. I was quite impressed with how they turned out. Perhaps even more impressive was the fact that Adriano really liked them despite the whole no-meat thing.

Our recipe turned out to be more like this:

Vegetarian Lentil Burgers

  • 1 cup of lentils
  • 3 cloves of garlic, chopped
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • olive oil
  • 1 carrot, grated
  • 2 eggs
  • 4 tablespoons of soy sauce
  • 2 tablespoons of sesame seeds
  • 2 cups of bread crumbs

Boil 1 cup of lentils (this makes 2 cups lentils cooked). Use 3 cloves of garlic and one onion chopped and sautée in olive oil. Grate the carrot fine and mix with two eggs, 4 tablespoons of soy sauce, 2 tablespoons of sesame seeds and about 2 cups of bread crumbs.

Once the lentils are cooked, drain, throw in a food processor (or mash by hand) and mix with other ingredients. Finally, add onions and garlic and mix everything together. Shape into patties, and with a little bit of olive oil cook in a pan until they are lightly brown.

I put jalapeño havarti , avocado and honey mustard on mine. Amazing! Adriano opted for the more traditional cheddar, tomato and a bit of less traditional avocado. We made 3 burgers and froze the rest of the mixture. I am guessing the recipe would yield about 6 super yummy and not too obviously vegetarian burgers. Enjoy!

Adriano apologizes for not taking any photos because he thought they weren’t going to turn out well and when he started eating them he devoured 2 burgers in record time.