Hello, everyone! I know I haven't posted anything in awhile, and it's because I haven't had any amazing new recipes to share--UNTIL NOW. I decided to try a meatless meal one night a week for awhile for various reasons, and came upon this nice little vegan lentil burger recipe today that sounded promising, and of course when I was done the recipe looked kind of unrecognizable. But hey, the method's there!
I'm counting this as sorta vegetarian because I didn't use any real meat, just chicken broth when I was cooking the lentils. And spur-of-the-moment I decided to make a little sauce to accompany it, and oh man it made a difference. Let me know what you think in the comments! Glad to be back.
Lentil "burgers" with sour cream sauce
For the burgers:
1 cup uncooked lentils (I used green, use whatever you like)
1 cup uncooked brown rice
4 cups chicken stock
1 cup finely grated carrot
1 small onion, finely grated
1.5 cups uncooked oatmeal
2-3 tsp. turmeric
1 tsp. ground coriander
2 Tbsp olive oil (for four burgers)
For the sour cream sauce:
1/3 cup reduced fat sour cream
1 Tbsp dillweed
Bring the 4 cups of chicken stock to a boil in a medium-large saucepan; add lentils and brown rice. Stir, reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer for around 45 minutes, until the liquid is absorbed. Remove from heat, and cool to room temperature.
While your lentils and rice are cooling, grate the carrot and onion. Once the cooked ingredients are cool enough, mix everything together. Form patties with your hands (this should make around 8 very satisfying patties), and allow to rest for 5-10 minutes while you heat up your pan to fry them. Extra burgers freeze beautifully if left uncooked.
Add oil to your pan, and heat until oil is shimmery but not smoking over medium/medium-high heat. Add the burgers, and brown on both sides (this should take about 3 minutes per side). While they're cooking, mix up the sour cream and dill. Once the burgers look crispy and reasonably done, plate them and serve with the sour cream sauce.
Peter and I really enjoyed these, and were both satisfied by one patty apiece. We suggest you try them with some roasted tomatoes or other vegetable; just toss some veggies with a tablespoon of olive oil and a generous sprinkling of kosher salt, and bake at 325 until they look delicious.
Happy eating!
