Chickpea Burgers, Burger Sauce, and Salad

Here's the burger recipe.

Here's the sauce recipe.

Here's the salad I made:

-2 cucumbers peeled and chopped
-2 carrots peeled and chopped
-1/2 red onion diced
-1(ish) tsp fresh dill
-small amount grated cheese (we used caramelized onion cheddar)
-we also put some romaine lettuce in there since we had leftovers from burger toppings

Here's the dressing I made:

-1/4 cup red wine vinegar (approx)
-1/2 cup olive oil (approx)
-1.5 tbsp dijon mustard (approx)
-ground rainbow pepper

Here's the finished product:

This one was kind of labor intensive. The labor wasn't so much in the chopping, which it has been for most of my meals, you just have to mix it, fry it, bake it, and mix up the sauce. Then I made a salad on the side for some veggies.

While labor intensive, it wasn't difficult. The patty was a little mushy when it went into the frying pan (I think I over-pureed the carrots and onions, since I used the food processor and didn't bother to chop the veggies beforehand so I had to run it a bit long...it may have been thicker/sturdier if I had grated it, the recipe had it both ways). Once one side fried up it held together fine for the flip. It took a while to fry each burger, 2-3 minutes each side (as the oil got hotter, I had to flip it sooner), and then it had to bake, and cool. I mixed up the sauce and salad while it was baking, they were pretty quick.

I kept the recipe as-is, except I didn't cover the burgers with a layer of BBQ sauce (not a fan), and I added some chopped capers to the burger sauce. I didn't miss the BBQ sauce on the burgers (but it might be great if it's your thing), and I think the capers were a good addition. I just kind of threw stuff together for the salad, so you could really choose any veggie combo and whip it up. I meant it to be more of a cucumber salad and planned to put in feta, but we didn't have feta and we had leftover romaine, so that's how it turned out. I made a basic vinaigrette, it would probably work ok with balsamic vinegar too.

Both husband and I found it very tasty. You certainly can't say this is a substitute for an actual burger, it's a whole different animal. So don't eat this thinking "well, maybe it will be just like a beef burger, but with chickpeas!" Not at all. But as its own thing, it's great. The cumin and smoked paprika give it a good flavor, and it goes well with the burger sauce. The recipe lists some other sauces that could go with it, if burger sauce isn't your thing.

I'm saving the chickpea water (aquafaba) to try and make vegan meringues, possibly tomorrow. I'm kind of curious how they are, so I figured since we were using chickpeas, I'd save the juice and give it a try! Stay tuned.