Recipe – Scott Jurek’s Lentil Mushroom Burgers

Since moving toward a more plant-based diet, I’ve been discovering an incredible amount of delicious recipes. It has been really fun to try them all out and figure out which ones we like and which we don’t. Surprisingly, we’ve liked all the recipes we’ve tried so far! My co-worker yesterday called vegan food “cardboard” but I have to say that every home-cooked meal I’ve had so far has been even more flavorful than my routine meals. Since starting this lifestyle, we are eating a much wider variety of foods, we’ve bought at least 5 new spices and we always have fresh herbs on hand.

Scott Jurek’s book Eat And Run finishes each chapter with a vegan recipe. So far I’ve tried two and they have both been delicious. The following recipe is the first that we tried since we switched to a plant-based diet just before the 4th of July and we wanted to bring something tasty to the BBQ we attended. Since many veggie burgers on the market are actually not vegan (often they contain eggs or some sort of dairy so always read the ingredients before purchasing!) and I love to cook, I decided to make our own. Although the burgers do take a while to prepare (give yourself at least an hour and then another 20-30 minutes for them to cool) and there are a lot of ingredients, once you have everything you need, there isn’t a lot of extra things to buy. ‘

Recipe: 

Here is the recipe, thanks to Scott’s website (I recommend buying the book even though some of his recipes are online-it’s a great story):

Ingredients: 

• 1 cup dried green lentils (2 1⁄4 cups cooked)
• 2 1⁄4 cups water
• 1 teaspoon dried parsley
• 1⁄4 teaspoon black pepper
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 1⁄4 cups finely chopped onion
• 3⁄4 cup finely chopped walnuts
• 2 cups fine bread crumbs (see Note)
• 1⁄2 cup ground flax seed (flax seed meal)- I accidentally bought whole flax seeds and it still worked
• 3 cups finely chopped mushrooms
• 1 1⁄2 cups destemmed, finely chopped kale, spinach, or winter greens- I used kale
• 2 tablespoons coconut oil or olive oil
• 3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
• 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
• 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 1⁄2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1⁄2 teaspoon paprika

In a small pot, bring the lentils, water, parsley, 1 garlic clove, and 1⁄4 cup of the onion to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, partially covered, for 35 to 40 minutes, until the water is absorbed and the lentils are soft.

While the lentils are cooking, combine the walnuts, bread crumbs, and flax seed in a bowl. Add the nutritional yeast, salt, pepper, and paprika and mix well.

Sauté the remaining onion, remaining garlic, the mushrooms, and greens in the oil for 8 to 10 minutes, then set aside. Remove the lentils from the heat, add the vinegar and mustard, and mash with a potato masher or wooden spoon to a thick paste. I don’t have a potato masher so I used a big spoon to mash them but many were still left in tact – it seemed to still work without completely mashing them into a paste. 

In a large mixing bowl, combine the lentils, sautéed veggies, and bread crumb mixtures, and mix well. Cool in the refrigerator for 15 to 30 minutes or more.

Using your hands, form burger patties to your desired size and place on waxed paper. Lightly fry in a seasoned skillet, broil, or grill until lightly browned and crisp, 3 to 5 minutes on each side. Extra uncooked patties can be frozen on wax paper in plastic bags or wrapped. The first time I made this recipe, it made 9 big burgers. The second time, 8 even bigger ones. Apparently you can make 12 if you make them small but I prefer big ones!

Taste & Tips: 

These burgers tasted amazing. The first time we had them was at a BBQ so they were on a soft, white bun. The second time we had them on Ezekiel bread and they were still good. They are very dense and filling and absolutely delicious! They nearly taste like meat – no joke! You can clearly tell they aren’t, but they definitely satisfy. The first time I made them we were in a hurry so I formed them while they were still semi warm and I had left the mix as is while refrigerating. The second time, after I mixed them all together, I kneeded them a bit with my hands so that it was a big ball and everything was stuck together. The second time the patties stayed together much better so I definitely recommend that method.

Do you have any veggie burger recipes? Let me know if you try this recipe and enjoy it!