Mexican Black Bean Buckwheat Burger

By Mom_s

This Mexican Black Bean Buckwheat Burger is full of nutrient-rich, gluten-free whole food ingredients and is one of those recipes that you can make in advance, freeze and then cook as you need them. These burgers make delicious sandwiches and they are also yum wrapped in steamed collards with Ancho Chipotle Sauce, sprouts and greens.

Ingredients

• Optional & Recommended Additions:
• 1 red or yellow bell pepper, ribs and seeds removed, diced
• 1 red onion, diced
• 1 large carrot, diced
• 4-5 cloves garlic, minced
• Cold-pressed, virgin coconut oil
• 1/4 sunflower seeds, soaked
• 1 tbsp chia seed
• 2 dry chipotle peppers, remove seeds (unless you are a masochist and like breathing fire—like me sometimes)
• 2 tsp apple cider vinegar
• 2 tbsp fresh lime juice
• 1 tsp lime zest
• 1/4 cup +2 tbsp pure water
• 1 tbsp nutritional yeast
• 1 3/4 tsp fine ground sea salt
• 1/4 tsp fresh ground pepper
• 3/4 tsp ground cumin
• 1 1/4 tsp ground coriander
• 1 cup packed chopped purple kale (any kind is fine)
• 2 cups soaked and cooked black beans—a little over 1 cup of dry (here’s how and why I recommend soaking)
• 1 cup hulled buckwheat groats, soaked and cooked—a little over 1 cup of dry
• 1/2 cup cilantro leaves
• Gluten-free flour of your choice (GF all-purpose, garbanzo, garbanzo/fava and almond flour work well)
• Creamy Ancho Chipotle Sauce*
• Gluten-free or sprouted slider buns for burgers
• Steamed collard greens for a wrap
• Mixed greens for a salad
• Fresh sprouts
• Fresh greens

Preparation

Step 1

In a large pan, warmed over medium heat with 1/2 tsp cold-pressed virgin coconut oil, brown red pepper, onion and carrot. Add garlic and cook 3 more minutes then remove from heat.

Toss sunflower seeds, chia, chipotle peppers, apple cider vinegar, lime juice, zest, water, nutritional yeast, salt, pepper, cumin and coriander into the blender and mix until thoroughly creamy.

Place kale, one cup of black beans, 3/4 cup buckwheat and cilantro leaves into food processor. Add cooked veggies and pulse about 5 times—break it up a bit.

Add creamy sauce from blender and pulse 20 times so mixture looks like below. You don’t want paste so don’t over pulse. You want beautiful colors chopped together enough that they bind, but not too much that you lose texture.


In a large glass bowl, take the remaining cup of beans and mash a bit with a fork. Then fold in processed mixture with 1/4 cup remaining buckwheat.

Now.
If you are going to cook your burgers immediately, there are two ways. You can cook them with a little coconut oil in a frying pan, or you can bake them. I prefer baking for two reasons. One, it’s less oil. Two, they actually hold together and firm up quite well post-baking. Either way, though, both methods are delicious. You choose.

Place the gluten-free flour of your choice on a large glass plate and drop a big spoonful onto flour. Sprinkle some flour around and on top of mixture to “powder” it enough that you can pick it up.

Form it into a “cake” with your palms. If at any time it seems too sticky, add more flour to the sticky spot. You may have to wash hands a few times if burger mix starts to cake too much or gather in your palm.

For pan frying, just add 1/2 tsp coconut oil to pan and cook your burger over low-medium heat for 7-10 mins on each side. Let one side really brown and cook before you flip. Be patient. We aren’t working with grease or eggs here, so in order to bind, you need to let the ingredients cook together.

For baking, set oven to 300F and cook them for 35-40 min on a parchment-lined cookie sheet.

If you want to freeze some for later…

just loosely wrap a burger in parchment and then either individually wrap in foil or just place parchment-rolled burgers carefully (they are delicate until cooked so if they lose shape in the freezer, just reshape with a spatula as you cook).

You can freeze any cooked leftovers and you can refrigerate them in an airtight glass container.

*Creamy Ancho Chipotle Sauce

1 cup pure water
1/2 cup raw cashews, soaked
1 tbsp nutritional yeast
Large handful of fresh, organic cilantro leaves
1 chipotle pepper, stem removed
1/2 ancho pepper, remove seeds and stem (optional ingredient)
1 tbsp fresh organic lime juice
1/2 tsp fresh, chopped lime zest
1 clove fresh garlic
1/2 tsp Celtic or pink Himalayan sea salt

Place all ingredients in the blender and mix until thoroughly blended. Use immediately and store remaining in an airtight jar in the refrigerator for up to one week.