Chickpea Veggie Burger With Sriracha Mayo

Andrea Potischman | Mar 7, 2024

It’s no secret, I’ve blogged about my love for a great veggie burger before. But this time, it’s different. This is my chickpea veggie burger with sriracha mayo and it’s my new favorite. And although it sounds shocking, this meatless burger is a great quick meal option. Meatless burger recipes are often labor-intensive. But that’s because they are trying to create the texture of meat, something that is very tricky to do. This is not my angle here. My chickpea veggie burger is a healthy, flavorful, vegetarian alternative, that you can make quickly. All you need to make it is a food processor.

Who Invented Veggie Burgers

Gregory Sams remembers when he first came up with the idea of an all-vegetable “burger“. The London-based natural food restaurant owner called his product the “VegeBurger” when it first hit the market in 1982.  The word “Vege” or what Americans now know as “veggie,” was a relatively new thing in the 80’s, and in fact, it didn’t enter the lexicon until the late ’70s. The term “veggie burgers” was cited in the Camden (AR) News in 1976, but that referred to a hamburger with vegetables on top.

But before Sam began selling his product commercially, he and his brother had already been promoting a vegetarian diet in the United Kingdom. Although vegetarianism has a history that dates back to ancient Egypt, in the late ’60s a meat-less diet was uncommon in the UK.  In the United States, vegetarianism wasn’t considered trendy until about 1971 when Frances Moore Lappé’s bestseller Diet for a Small Planet was published.

Macrobiotic Restaurants

By the late ’60s, Sams opened SEED, a macrobiotic restaurant in London. Its menu included rice, veggies, seaweed, unleavened bread, miso, and some seed ingredients. Although this holistic approach to food is believed to have originated in Japan, macrobiotic restaurants, like SEED, didn’t become popular in Europe until the latter half of the ’70s.

Sams invented his first meatless patty at SEED. That first veggie burger had a base of seitan and was flavored with tamari, aduki beans, and oat flakes. Sam’s later VegeBurger was created to save his and his brother’s company, The Harmony Food Brand. It took six months to mix different quantities of four main ingredients (wheat gluten, sesame, soy, and oats) to create just the right texture.

The VegeBurger was the first of many meatless patties entering the market at the time. Probably, similar versions of Sams’s VegeBurger were already appearing in restaurants predating his business.  But the VegeBurger was the first to reach the commercial, natural foods market, hence its tremendous success.

I’m not a vegetarian, (I tied it out at one point in college) but I make lots of vegetarian meals and love good meatless alternatives. So this burger was a fun project for me and my whole family seems happy.

Chickpea Veggie Burger With Sriracha Mayo

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Servings:

6

Serving Size:

1 burger

Prep:

20 minutes

Cook:

10 minutes

Total:

30 minutes

Ingredients:

For the Sriracha Mayo:

• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 1 small garlic clove, grated
• 1-2 tablespoons Sriracha sauce
• 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice; salt to taste

For the Chickpea Veggie Burgers:

• 2 small Yukon gold potato, skin on, roughly chopped
• 3 tablespoons Extra Virgin olive oil, divided
• 2/3 cup yellow onion, minced
• 2/3 cup red pepper, seeded and minced
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 teaspoons minced jalapeño, deseeded
• 1 1/2 teaspoons cumin
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• Two (15-ounce) cans chickpeas (garbanzo) beans, drained and rinsed
• 1/2 cup fresh parsley, finely chopped
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 2/3 cup plain panko bread crumbs
• 1 1/4 teaspoons kosher salt
• 6 brioche buns
• 1 cup micro greens

Directions:

1. For the Sriracha Mayo: In a small mixing bowl add the mayonnaise, garlic, Sriracha, and lemon juice and mix to combine. Season to taste with salt. Set aside.
2. For the Chickpea Veggie Burger: In a small sauté pan add the potatoes, cover with water and bring to a boil. Once boiling, reduce the heat slightly and simmer till tender, about 10-15 minutes. Drain and let cool.
3. While the potatoes are cooking, in a medium sauté pan add 1 tablespoon olive oil and place over medium flame. When hot, but not smoking, add the onion and red pepper and sauté till tender, about 2 minutes. Add the garlic, jalapeño, cumin and chili powder and sauté till fragrant, about 30 seconds. Remove from the heat and let cool.
4. In the bowl of a food processor, add the drained chickpeas, cooked potato, red pepper mixture, parsley, eggs, panko bread crumbs and salt. Pulse on and off to finely chop (but not puree) the mixture.
5. Using your hands, form the chickpea mixture into 6 patties. Place the patties on a plate, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerator for about 30 minutes to set.
6. To Cook the Burgers: Place a large non-stick sauté pan over medium-high heat. Add the remaining 2 tablespoon olive oil. When hot, add the veggie burgers and cook until nicely browned, about 5 minutes. Gently flip the burgers and cook on the other side for an additional 5 minutes. Serve hot on a lightly toasted brioche bun with sriracha may and micro greens.