Beetroot, Lentils and Quinoa Burgers

by Dave Stansbie

Who doesn’t love a burger? This is a very easy recipe to prepare your own vegan burgers, saving money and avoiding the ultra-processed vegan burgers that are now populating supermarket shelves.
That was my main concern: I used to find bean-based burgers quite easily in supermarket, while nowadays most are make of ultra-processed soy and have plenty of additives. This doesn’t make them a healthy food, as processing strips out most nutrients from the base ingredients leaving the final product almost nutritionally empty.
These burgers will provide plenty of fibre thanks to the beetroot, flaxseeds and quinoa, proteins because of the lentils and again quinoa and good fats with the walnuts – what’s not to like? Ah, they also taste delicious!

Ingredients:

40gr grounded flaxseeds
80gr coarsely grounded walnuts
2 garlic cloves
1 leek
250gr precooked beetroots
50gr cooked quinoa
250gr of cooked puy lentils
1 tbsp corn starch
Salt and pepper

Method

Mix the grounded flaxseeds with 40ml of boiling water and stir to create a gloopy compound (this will substitute egg). Let it rest. In the meantime, gently fry the crushed garlic cloves and the leek until golden. In a blender at the lowest speed coarsely blend the beetroots and fried leeks and garlic. Grab a mixing bowl and mix all the ingredients (beetroot+leeks&garlic, flaxseeds, walnuts, quinoa and lentils) adjusting salt and pepper.
You can add some spices herbs at this stage – some dried mint, smoked paprika, thyme…
The compound should have a quite firm consistency, like minced meat, but if it is too loose, add some corn starch to firm it up.
Divide the compound into 6 or 7 balls and squeeze them to make a burger shape.
You can either bake, fry or airfry your burgers and…enjoy!