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.
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 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.
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.
This recipe for burger buns has been adapted from the amazing Edd Kimber, the winner of The Great British Bake-Off 2010. You can find his original recipe here
This recipe has been changed slightly because my husband and I don’t consume cow milk, we only drink plant-based milk.
Share, tag, or repost if you loved this recipe!
Homemade Burger Buns
Equipment
- Oven
- Stand Mixer
Ingredients
- 400 g strong white bread flour this has a higher gluten content, making the bread as bouncy as you’ve seen
- 1 tsp Himalayan pink salt
- 7 g instant yeast
- 6 tsp brown sugar/5 tsps of muscovado sugar I would avoid using date syrups because that may mess up the consistency of the dough
- 240 ml of oat milk
- 60 g unsalted butter or vegan butter
- 2 eggs
Instructions
- Edd Kimber recommends to place about 4 tbsps of the flour and 80ml of the milk in a pan and heat up into a thick paste, to place in the mixer or dough immediately. I have not tried this recipe without doing this, so I am not sure what the result will be if you do skip that part
- I used a stand mixer for this, to make it much cleaner and simpler.
- I mixed all the dry ingredients first
- Then I placed all the wet ingredients in the mixer, and let it blend together
- I then added the flour paste last
- My mixture did come out a little gooey, hence why my recipe indicates 15g more of flour than Edd Kimber’s original. If your mixture does come out gooey, sprinkle a little more flour (bit by bit) until the dough looks a little more firm than just a thick gooey paste.
- Divide the dough into 8 equal parts on a flat parchment covered baking tray (make sure the parchment paper is sprinkled with flour)
- Cover lightly with a kitchen towel and let the dough rest to double in size.
- Depending on the temperature of the room you let this sit in, it should not take more than 45 minutes to 1 hour for the dough to double in size.
- I made the mistake over over-proofing my dough, so keep a constant look out.
- If you do happen to over-proof your dough, don’t worry. All you need to do is to degas your dough by kneading it again, and releasing the gas out of the dough. Then you can let it rest for another few minutes to naturally rise again.
- After your buns have perfectly risen, lightly brush the vegan butter or normal butter over the buns and lightly press down any garnishes you wish to have. Normally a light wash of egg white is used here, but if you don’t want to waste another egg (I never use the leftover yolk) then this is an alternative method. I added sesame seeds (unfortunately I did not press down firm enough so they fell off after baking, so make sure you firmly press down))
- Place these buns in the oven for about 20 minutes on 180°C
- Use right away for your burgers!
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.
Veggie Garden Burger Patty
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
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.
All recipes and images are copyright and the intellectual property of ‘The Veggie Wifey’, and cannot be altered or redistributed for commercial or other purposes.