Cora's Homemade Vegan Burgers

5 from 1 vote

These homemade vegan burgers, loaded with protein and veggies, are inspired by the Classic Hollywood film, The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946).

Prep Time20

Cook Time20

Refrigerate Time:15

Total Time55

Servings: burgers

2 Tbsp olive oil
½ tsp sea salt
½ red onion, finely chopped
½ yellow bell pepper, finely chopped (use whatever color bell peppers are available)
½ orange bell pepper, finely chopped
½ red bell pepper, finely chopped

Heat 2 Tbsp olive oil in a frying pan over medium heat for one minute. Now add the chopped onion, bell peppers, and ½ tsp salt to the pan.
Cook over medium heat, flipping occasionally with your spatula, until the veggies start to brown a bit, about 8-10 minutes. If the pan gets a little dry in the process, add a little more olive oil.
Now turn the heat down to low, and cook an additional 2 minutes.
(Note: If you haven’t already cooked your brown rice, now is the time to do it.)

Add the drained chickpeas to a large mixing bowl. With a fork, potato masher, or clean hands, mash those chickpeas!!! See my photo above for a visual of the texture. You definitely want there to be some texture, so be sure to leave some whole and half chickpeas. (We’re not going for hummus.)

Once the veggies and the rice are cooked, add them to the mixing bowl with the mashed chickpeas. Now add the salt, garlic powder, onion salt, cilantro, panko breadcrumbs, and vital wheat gluten to the bowl. With your hands and/or a spatula, mix everything together.
Once the dough is almost completely incorporated, add the water. Continue mixing until everything comes together.

Refrigerate the dough for at least 15 minutes, and up to 2 days. I often make the burger dough the night before I plan to fry the burgers.
While the dough refrigerates, it’s a good time to toast burger buns, make French fries, and prepare any burger condiments, such a sliced tomato or cheese, that you’d like to serve on the burgers.

After the dough has refrigerated for at least 15 minutes, take it out, and shape the patties.
You can do whatever size burger you like, but I recommend using ¼ cup-⅓ cup of batter per burger. You should get 10-12 burger patties out of the dough. If you use more batter than that for each patty, your burgers may be a little undone in the middle after frying.
Also, when I shape my burger patties, I don’t like them to be too thick. Aim for your burger patties to be between 3-4 inches in diameter.

Add a few Tbsp of olive oil to a frying pan, and heat the oil over medium heat for 1 minute.
Now add a few burgers to the frying pan. I do 3 burgers at a time in my 11 inch frying pan.
Fry each burger for five minutes over medium heat, or until the side of the burger in the pan is golden brown. Now flip each burger, and fry for another 5 minutes, until the other side of each burger is golden brown.
Take the burgers out of the pan, and set on a plate lined with a paper towel to remove excess oil.
Repeat until you’ve fried all the burgers.

Alternately, you can bake the burgers at 375 degrees for 10 minutes. Then flip each burger, and cook for an additional 10 minutes.
The burgers do taste better fried in my opinion—the texture retains much more moisture—but the baked burgers are also delicious.

Compile the burgers on your favorite burger buns with your favorite condiments.
I prefer to pair these burgers with pretzel buns, cheddar/vegan cheddar, tomato slices, arugula, and Vegenaise.
Serve the burgers with greens or French fries and enjoy!

These burgers are vegan.

These burgers are vegetarian.

These burgers can be baked or fried, as per the recipe instructions.