Posted on by William Howard

The Chickpea Burger, the Perfect Food to Hide Your Veggies In

Preparation Time 90 minutes, Servings 10 to 12

Chickpea Burger

Once we resolved to eat more veggies daily, we needed alternatives to animal products. It was easy to gravitate and select a "veggie" burger from our local grocer, but the problem with these alternatives is, they try too hard to simulate animal flesh. This means that instead of enjoying the look, texture, flavours of vegetables, you end up with a highly processed, greasy veg-meat that does not seem much different from the animal-meat. To our credit, we avoided them and settled to eating most of our vegetables in a form nature presented them to us or with little transformation.  For special occasions, burgers can be fun. Why not healthy too? For these reasons we searched and added this burger recipe.  It is not designed to have similar attributes to an animal-flesh-based burger, but to be a delicious alternative on its own.

  • 2 cans of chickpeas, drained
  • ½ cup of water or you may retain and use the water from your canned chickpeas
  • ½ cup of vegetable broth 
  • 1 cup of rolled oats, preferably not the quick cooking variety
  • 4 tablespoons of ground flax seed
  • 2 tablespoons of vital wheat gluten
  • 1 teaspoon of paprika
  • 2 teaspoon of ground cumin, 1 teaspoon if you grind the seeds yourself before using them
  • 1 teaspoon of ground coriander
  • 1 tablespoon of granulated garlic or a few cloves of garlic finely chopped
  • Teaspoon of dried parsley or a handful of chopped fresh parsley
  • 1 small onion, skin removed and  finely chopped 
  • 2 sweet red peppers finely chopped
  • 2 carrots finely chopped
  • 2 cups of chopped cooked or chopped frozen spinach
  • 2 tablespoons of tomato paste
  • 1 cup or more of whole wheat breadcrumbs
  • 8 to 10 whole wheat buns
  • Optional 3 tablespoons of nutritional yeast 
  • Optional salt and pepper to taste
  • Your favourite condiments and toppings
  1. Excluding the bread crumbs, add all the dry ingredients together. This includes the flaxseed meal, oats, vital wheat gluten, and all the spices listed that are in dry form. Mix the dry ingredients well.
  2. Add the water to the mixed dry ingredients, mix, and let the resulting mixture set for 5 to 15 minutes.
  3. Using the vegetable broth as needed, dry sauté the chopped and diced vegetables, which are the onions, carrots, peppers and fresh garlic.
  4. To the cooked vegetables add and mix the tomato paste, chopped spinach and chickpeas.  
  5.  Place the vegetables, tomato paste, chopped spinach and chickpeas into a food processor or blender to pulse and grind into smaller pieces.  DO NOT OVER PROCESS. We are not trying to make a paste.
  6. Excluding the breadcrumbs, In a mixing bowl combine and mix the remaining dry and wet ingredients to make the bulk of your burger.  Cover the bowl and allow the 'burger dough' to set in your refrigerator for half an hour. 
  7. Set a shallow bowl and dish and fill it with some bread crumbs, and prepare a cooking sheet lined with parchment paper to set your burger on. Preheat your oven stove to 375ºF (190ºC).
  8. Using your "burger dough, create palm-sized burger patties, ideally the diameters of your burger buns and no thicker than ¾ of an inch thick and no thinner than ¼ of an inch.  Turn your patties in and over the breadcrumbs to coat the patty and place it on your cooking sheet. 
  9. Once you filled the cooking sheet and have no more burgers to form.  Place the cooking sheet in the hot oven for 25 minutes to cook one side. Remove the sheet to flip the burgers and cook the other side for an additional 25 minutes.  You may use a longer cooking time if you choose to make a thick sized burger.  You want to cook them in order to make them firm but not to dry them out.
  10. Once cooked, place them on your burger buns and serve with your favourite sauces and topping.

You can use the same recipe to form and bake falafel balls. 

Don't have chickpeas on hand, you can subsitue any cooked been to make your burgers.

Traditional Hummus

Creamy, rich, delicious as a condiment, spread or dip, try our version of the traditional chickpea 'Hummus'.

Wish to add a spicy component to your pantry try our 'Jess Hot Sauce'.

Wish to add a spicy component to your pantry try our 'Jess Hot Sauce'.

Bulgur Tabbouleh, Couscous Tabbouleh, Spelt Tabbouleh, it is all the same recipe. You are only changing the type of starch used.

Bulgur Tabbouleh, Couscous Tabbouleh, Spelt Tabbouleh, it is all the same recipe. You are only changing the type of starch used.

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