Beetroot Black Bean Burgers

Serves 5-7 (14 patties)

Prep Time 15

Cook Time 20

Total Time 35

Servings

Calories 176kcal

1 large onion finely diced
2 cloves garlic crushed
3 cups black beans (2 x 400ml cans, rinsed and drained)
1 large beetroot 1 1/2c grated and packed
1/2 c chickpea (besan) flour
2 tbsp nutritional yeast
1 large handful fresh basil roughly torn
2 tsp sea salt
To serve: whole grain buns lettuce, sliced tomato, avocado, cashew aioli and tomato relish.

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees celcius (390 farenheit).
Mix all the ingredients together in a big bowl, or pulse lightly in a food processor until combined. Don't overmix in your processor as you want the mixture to stay relatively dry and not get too sloppy.
Press the mixture firmly into a 1/4 cup measuring cup and pop out onto an oven tray until you have 12-14 burgers. With the back of your measuring cup flatten the burgers slightly pushing any stray bits back into the burger round.
Bake the burgers on fan bake for 15 minutes, grilling for a few minutes at the end if you want them a little browner. Then flip over and bake for 5 more minutes on the other side, putting your whole grain rolls in at the same time so they bake up nice and crunchy.
Serve two burger patties each on whole grain rolls, with your toppings of choice (stacked as I've done in the photos). Or go topless with two patties and just one roll. Devour with extra salad and relish on the side!

If you like a firmer burger (or your patties are quite thick), bake for an additional 5 minutes on the second side. If you're prepping these for a BBQ later on, skip the second side and do that (and the wholegrain rolls) on the BBQ flat plate. You can also follow this second method if you want to freeze them or refrigerate for another night - simply place baking paper in between if freezing, then defrost and pan fry or BBQ up as you need.
If you cook your own beans from scratch, 1 cup of dried beans equates to 3 cups of cooked beans. If you don't have black beans, adzuki beans also work well too.
You can use brown rice or buckwheat flour at a pinch if you don't have chickpea flour on hand. Although I highly recommend trying chickpea flour - it gives these burgers amazing flavour and is the best flour at binding patties together sans egg. If you have a strong food processor you can make your own chickpea flour at home by blending up dried chickpeas, otherwise just purchase ready made here.
I love the flavour of nutritional yeast - it gives a delicious savoury richness to these burgers. If you'd prefer more of the basil to come through you can reduce this to 1 tablespoon.