Mediterranean Quinoa Burgers with Cucumber Yogurt Sauce
This quinoa burger recipe does take a bit of time to prepare for (soaking beans for eight hours!) but it makes a large batch and the uncooked patties freeze well. You can cook them from frozen by just dropping the temperature a little bit (or by moving them to indirect heat after getting grill marks on the outside) and giving them a little extra time to heat through. Frozen or fresh, these veggies burgers can also be cooked in a grill pan or skillet over medium heat.
Ingredients
Burger Patties:
- 1 lb. dry garbanzo beans
- Enough water to cover the beans
- 3 cups cooked and cooled quinoa about 1 ½ cups dry
- 1 small onion roughly chopped
- 2 large eggs beaten
- ¼ cup chopped flat leaf parsley
- ¼ cup chopped cilantro
- 4 Tbsp. garbanzo bean flour
- 1 Tbsp. Kosher salt
- 1 Tbsp. ground cumin
- 1 ½ tsp. minced garlic
- 1 tsp. baking soda
- 1 tsp. ground black pepper
- ½ tsp. cayenne pepper
Cucumber Yogurt Sauce:
- 1 cup plain full-fat Greek yogurt
- ½ ea. English cucumber shredded and squeezed dry
- 1 Tbsp. lemon juice
- 1 Tbsp. chopped fresh dill
- ¼ tsp. finely minced garlic
- ¼ tsp. kosher salt
Instructions
- Place beans in a large bowl. Cover with cool water 2-3 inches above beans. Allow to sit at room temperature at least eight hours, or overnight. Drain and rinse.
- Meanwhile, combine all cucumber yogurt sauce ingredients; mix well. Refrigerate until ready to serve.
- In the bowl of a food processor, combine beans, quinoa, onion, egg, parsley, cilantro, flour, salt, cumin, garlic, baking soda, pepper, and cayenne. Pulse until mixture reaches a consistency that will hold together but isn’t completely smooth.* (see note below)
- Form the mixture into 10 burger patties (about 6-oz each). Refrigerate for at least 20 minutes.
- Pre-heat your grill to 350° F for direct heat.
- Lightly oil the grill grates or spray with avocado oil spray. Cook patties about five minutes on each side.
- Serve in a lettuce wrap (or bun, if that is your thing!) topped with tomato, onion, and cucumber yogurt sauce.
- * If you don’t have a large-capacity food processor, this step is best accomplished in steps. I like to start by pulsing the beans until they are small uniform pieces. Then I mix all the ingredients in a large bowl and work in batches in the food processor to get to that almost-smooth texture that holds together.