The Ultimate Healthy Veggie Burger
A delicious homemade veggie burger patty made with chickpeas, sweet potato and spinach.
Nut-free
Over 60 mins
Creating a good homemade veggie burger for any vegetarian is a safe go-to-meal for when you run out of ideas and time. Most Sundays we make it a burger night and since my husband doesn’t mind eating veg from time to time, this burger recipe is great for meat-eaters too. It’s light, fresh and the homemade burger buns + patties don’t take very long to bake and cook.
Homemade Veggie Patties vs Store-Bought Veggie Patties
The market for plant-based burger patties from companies like Beyond Meat, Impossible Meat and OmniPork are slowing expanding, which is so great to see. I’ve tried all of them, and I do think they taste decent, but I also do know they have quite a bit of sodium in them.
A Beyond Meat patty contains 390mg of sodium, an Impossible Burger Patty contains 370mg of sodium and an Omnipork Patty contains 340mg of sodium. In comparison, a regular beef patty contains about 60-70mg of sodium. The stark difference in sodium levels is because these plant-based patties are often pre-seasoned, while the beef ones are not. Having too much sodium in your diet can increase your blood pressure which does affect your heart in the long-term.
Nonetheless, there are other nutritional attributes to consider when comparing the two such as the amount of saturated fat, the manufacturing processes and the other additives added to the patties. There is a great article by Sammi Brando, a nutritionist based in New York that writes about this in detail.
My Homemade Veggie Patty Recipe
My recipe here does not use any of the plant-based patties above. This recipe is a homemade patty using sweet potato, pumpkin, spinach, and chickpeas. It’s got a little salt, and pepper as seasoning and you can choose to make it breadcrumb crispy or not!
I have another homemade veggie patty recipe here for you to check out too! This has lentils in it and mushrooms, and is a little more dense than this one.
What To Add In The Burger
In the burger, you can add your own veggies and fruits such as zucchini, eggplants, tomatoes or avocados. I used seasoned and grilled brown button mushrooms, zucchini slices, butter lettuce and tomato slices.
For the sauce, I love relish in my burgers, it adds this extra bit of zing that makes it scrumptious. I also make my own burger sauce for this.
The Vegan Burger Buns
This recipe for burger buns has been adapted from my homemade bread recipe. You can find the recipe here
A Vegan & Gluten-Free Burger Bun Option
If you are in a household like mine where some individuals are vegan and some individuals are gluten-free, you can surely use my vegan bread recipe and replace the bread flour with oat flour.
You can also play around with this recipe and add some nuts, seeds or spices like chilli flakes or za’atar. You can also add some natural food coloring like matcha or turmeric for some rainbow buns!
Veggie Garden Burger Patty
A delicious homemade, plant-based burger patty made with fresh veggies and chickpeas
Equipment
- Steamer
- Pot
- Frying pan
- Spatula
Ingredients
- 1 Sweet potato
- 1/4 Pumpkin
- 1/4 can Chickpeas
- 2 cups Spinach
- 2 Spring Onions
- Salt
- Pepper
- Dry Oregano
- Dry Basil
- 1 tbsp All-purpose Flour replace this with almond flour or rice flour if you're gluten-free
Instructions
- Steam and mash all the veggies together
- All the spices and flour
- Mix together until smooth
- Create the patties using the palm of your hand. It shouldn't be wider than your palm. You can make this as thick or as thin as you like. I like thicker patties for the burger.
- Add the patties into a frying pan with minimal oil. Fry each side until golden brown.
- Optional: you can beat an egg, and coat the patties with this, and a layer of breadcrumbs before frying for that extra crispiness. I normally dunk the patties in flour, then coat it with egg then dunk it in breadcrumbs.
