Matt's Plate: Anyone can cook!

In the Pixar movie Ratatouille, Chef Gusteau was known for his saying "Anyone can cook!". He even wrote a book of the same title! While the book is obviously fictional, I too subscribe to the belief that anyone can cook, and one of my goals in this blog space is to provide healthy and easy recipes that anyone can make. Today, I wanted to share one of my favorites that is very easy and can be made with fairly common kitchen ingredients: black bean burgers

A couple of notes before making these: black bean burgers are much healthier than regular hamburgers, consisting of less fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol, yet also providing healthy proteins and much more fiber. I like to make them spicy, but you can experiment with your own preferences. For example, this recipe calls for onions, but you can leave them out if you desire. Also, if you do include onions, make sure you dice them very finely as larger pieces of onion will make it harder for the patty to stay together! I like to make the patties small (similar to the size of a slider burger) and I also have a whole-wheat recipe for yeast buns that I can make in 40 minutes which goes amazingly well with these. I will post that recipe another day!

Burgers - makes about 6-12 burgers depending on how large you make the patties
Time: 15-20 minutes
Ingredients:
1 can of black beans, drained and rinsed. This removes some moisture, along with any added sodium, so the burgers will be low-sodium, high fiber, and high protein. Very healthy!
1/4 an onion, finely diced
1 tablespoon of chopped garlic
1 egg
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1 tablespoon of chili powder
1 tablespoon of cumin
1 tablespoon of chili sauce (I used Sriracha) - you can leave this out if you don't like spicy foods but I think it gave the burgers some great flavor and a little kick.

Directions:
-After rinsing and draining the beans, mash them until they are thick and pasty.
-Finely chop the onions and garlic and add them to the beans and stir them well.
-In another bowl, stir the egg, cumin, chili powder, and chili sauce until it is well-combined, then add it to the beans and mix well.
-Add the bread crumbs. I ended up using a little more than a 1/2 cup. Mix it well.
-Let it sit for a few minutes so the bread crumbs can absorb some moisture, which will help the patty stay together.
-Then form a patty. You can grab some of the mixture and roll it into a ball in your hands, then flatten it. It will likely be sticky, so you can use a spatula to pry it off your hands.
-You can grill or bake them. If grilling outside, use high heat. If grilling inside, use medium-high heat and a little bit of cooking oil. Since the beans are mashed, they will burn easy so be prepared for slightly blackened burgers (this won't affect the taste much). If baking, bake at around 375 degrees for 5-10 minutes on each side. I grilled and baked some and they both tasted wonderful. Try them with mustard, avocados, hot sauce, ketchup or even mayonnaise (low-fat, of course). Below are some pics to show the process: