Vegetarian Eggplant Burger

Another vegetarian burger? Yes, absolutely! The last one really inspired me to search for yet another one. I love eggplant and one can never have too many burger recipes.

After a little search I came across The Tolerant Vegan’s baked eggplant burgers. I adapted some of the seasoning, but kept the recipe largely intact. The patty is vegan, although the burger buns are made with egg and milk.

Ingredients for 4 large burger patties:

1 eggplant in ¼ inch or ½cm slices

1 onion, finely chopped

1 garlic clove, finely chopped

1 can cannellini beans, 250g drained

¼ green pepper, in small pieces

1 Tbs pine nuts or walnuts, toasted

½ ts salt

1 ts za’atar

Handful of parsley, finely chopped

3 Tbs hummus

1 cup panko, Japans breadcrumbs

Flavorless oil

Rest of the ingredients:

Homemade hamburger buns

Tomato, sliced

Roasted eggplant slices

Lettuce

Hummus

Preheat the oven at 450°F/230°C. In the meantime clean and prep the vegetables. Rinse the beans and drain well.

Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper or foil. Place the eggplant slices on top, brush with oil and Bake for 10 minutes on one side and 5 minutes on the other.

For the patties you use half of the roasted eggplant. The other half is used as garnish for the burger.

While the eggplant is roasting. Fry the onion in a little oil until softened. Add the garlic at the end to get rid of the harsh raw garlic flavors.

Chop half of the roasted eggplant in big chunks.

Turn the oven down to 400°F/200°C.

In a bowl add the beans, green pepper, onion, garlic, chopped eggplant, parsley, za’atar, salt, hummus and the toasted pine nuts or walnuts.

Mix together and blitz in a food processor. Don’t chop it too finely so you can still see some of the ingredients.

Mix the panko through the bean mixture. It will become a lot firmer. Divide into 4 portions and shape into patties. Cover the baking sheet with parchment and brush with a little oil.

Bake the burgers at 400°F/200°C for 45 minutes. Turn them over gently halfway through.

This is after a full 45 minute bake. The patties have become much firmer.

Serve on a bun with lettuce, tomato, hummus and some of the leftover roasted eggplant.

The eggplant flavor isn’t very pronounced. Most of the flavor comes from the za’atar. I’m going to add some crumbled feta through the blended bean mixture next time. The patties won’t be vegan anymore, but I don’t mind.

These burgers aren’t intended to taste like a meaty hamburger. They are a delicious vegetarian alternative.

We ate these burgers with a simplified version of my corn fritters. These little nuggets are deep fried instead of shallow fried.