Was there anything better than a cheeseburger when you were growing up? Ok, maybe a grilled cheese, but cheeseburgers were a staple in my family. I ate them growing up, and growing out! Now, since my dietary change I have tried all sorts of burgers. I do admit that the "Impossible" burger is awesome. The Field Roast burger is really good as well. However, each of these contain way more sodium than I should be having. If you have checked out some of my other recipes, you will be sensing a theme here... so I needed to find something that was less sodium, but still tasted great. A black bean burger, especially the spicy chipotle ones you can get at Costco, are awesome... but they aren't really a "Burger". I have search and searched for a good burger so much I feel like Marshall and Ted on "How I Met Your Mother". However, just like they were told... "You're search is over!" The base for this recipe is from Sauce Stache and his ground beef recipe. It's the one I used for my Burger Steak recipe. This is that exact recipe I used for it, only made into 1/4 pound burger patties.
Cheeseburger, Cheeseburger, Cheeseburger
Yield: Eight 4oz burger patties
Recipe From: Sauce Stache but with my tweaks
What you will need:
250 grams of textured vegetable protein
2.25 tsp beet root powder (*this is what gives it the pink color)
2.5 tbsp methylcellulose
35 grams of pea protein
3 tbsp of nutritional yeast
2 tsp mushroom powder
2 grams of garlic powder
2 grams onion powder
1 tbsp of liquid smoke
2.25 cups of cold water
2.5 tbsp vinegar (I use apple cider vinegar)
1 tbsp lite soy sauce
How to Make The Burger Patties:
In a large mixing bowl, combine all of the dry ingredients and mix well. In a smaller mixing bowl, combine the wet ingredient and mix well.
Pour the wet ingredients over the dry and mix well. Let this mixture sit for at least 30 minutes for it to rehydrate. It should already start to look like beef.
Once you have let it rehydrate, give it a good mix. The mixture will be a little stiff, that's because of the methylcellulose. If you do not plan to use this right away, you can cover it with clingfilm and put it in the fridge until you are ready.
To create the patties, I use my kitchen scale to make sure I have four equal amounts. When I do, I use my burger press to create the patty. You can also use a piece of clingfilm to form it into the shape you want.
I like to cook mine for about 5 minutes in my air fryer at 350* on bake. I flip it at least once. This helps the methylcellulose to firm up, so your burger patty doesn't fall apart on you.
Then I transfer it to the grill or skillet I will be using to cook it a bit longer and put some nice grill marks on it. Even though the patty is pink from the beet root powder, it will brown a little like beef does as you cook it.
Add for you sliced cheese of choice. For me, I like to use thin slices of my Cheddar-Style cheese. To get this to melt some, I toss a lid over the patty and let it sit for a few minutes.
Serve with some air fried potatoes, or enjoy it by itself, topped with your favorite toppings.
Tip: As you cook the patty, add 1 tsp of vegan butter. Trust me! This is what the burger patties will look like, after pressing, prior to cooking. If I didn't know better, I would have thought those were ground beef patties.
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