Recipe: Black Bean Corn Burgers
Sunday, February 28th, 2010
It is recipe experimentation time! The veggie burger edition. That is right. I’m going meat free with this new recipe today.
One of my main goals this year is to really get my nutrition in check. When I was focusing on Olympic distance, I could still get away with eating just about whatever I wanted. It was pretty awesome. Endless hunger without having to worry about getting soft around the middle. When I stepped it up to racing half ironmans (and now doing a full this year) it is a completely different story. Getting my nutrition straight is now a requirement to getting across the finish line with a smile on my face. Part of that is revamping my race day nutrition and training supplements with the help of First Endurance, and the other part is cleaning up my day-to-day diet and ending some bad habits.
I used to have a pretty typical “bad American” diet. Tons of sugar, processed food, sugar, meat and barely anything that grew out of the dirt. I’ve done pretty well with getting rid of a lot of sugar and processed food, but cutting down on the meat for more veggies is always a constant struggle. A guy can only eat salads so many times before going insane, so I decided I needed to mix things up and test out some new recipes. The first on the list? Veggie burgers. I wasn’t too confident about this one since the only time I ever had a veggie burger I practically gagged and couldn’t finish it, but decided to give it a try.
I took this recipe for black bean veggie burgers and modified it a little to switch out the bell pepper for corn.
Ingredients
- 1 (16 ounce) can black beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 (16 ounce) can of corn, drained and rinsed
- 1/2 onion, chopped
- 3 cloves garlic, peeled
- 1 egg
- 1 tablespoon chili powder
- 1 tablespoon cumin
- 1/2 cup bread crumbs
Directions
- If grilling, preheat an outdoor grill for high heat, and lightly oil a sheet of aluminum foil. If baking, preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C), and lightly oil a baking sheet.
- In a medium bowl, mash black beans with a fork until thick and pasty. Add corn to bowl
- Finely chop onion, and garlic. Then stir into bowl.
- In a small bowl, stir together egg, chili powder and cumin.
- Stir the egg mixture into the mashed beans. Mix in bread crumbs until the mixture is sticky and holds together. Divide mixture into four patties.
- If grilling, place patties on foil, and grill about 8 minutes on each side. If baking, place patties on baking sheet, and bake about 10 minutes on each side.
The original recipe says that they only have 190 calories and 3 grams of fat each. I know that most triathletes aren’t super concerned with cutting calories a ton, but not too shabby, right?! Each burger was actually pretty filling too.
Looks pretty nasty, right? Trust me, it smells a lot better than it looks.
Looking a little more like something edible, right?
The final delicious burger patty of love, garnished with lettuce, pickles, ketchup and honey. 
The final verdict? I’m pretty freaking proud of myself. I love burgers as much as any red blooded American man. This definitely isn’t one, but sure holds its own. The consistency was a little mushy inside, so I’ll have to play with either making them thinner or adding more bread crumbs, but this won’t be the last time that I’ll be making this burger. I can’t wait until spring comes and I can try grilling these babies outside.
Tags: black bean burger, black beans, food, veggie burger recipe, veggie burgers | Posted in Nutrition | 5 Comments »
