The Essential Veggie Burger Recipe Collection

Here's a load of veggie burger recipes for you. Homemade burgers make a great freezer meal and these ones are all tasty and healthy, easy to make and perfect for freezing.

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Mushroom Burger Recipe

Garlic, maple syrup, olive oil.. This is a wonderfully easy and full-flavoured vegetarian Portobello mushroom burger.

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Spiced Lentil Burgers

These lentil patties are made with simple green lentils but you can substitute other varieties if you want. They are deliciously moist and gently spiced.

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Spicy Chickpea Burgers

This veggie burger recipe is one of my favourites. Chickpeas, harissa (chili paste) and cumin seeds are combined in deliciously spiced patties.

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Sunflower Seed and Hazelnut Burgers

A delicious and unusual veggie burger recipe. Nutty and nutritious and perfect for the barbecue, I like to serve them with chutney.

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A Delicious Vegetarian Burger Recipe With Black Eyed Peas & Millet

These are so tasty and moreish. Packed with nutrients as well as flavour, this veggie burger recipe features black-eyed peas, millet and plenty of fragrant spices.

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Lentil Burgers

Some really nice red lentil burgers with quinoa. These lentil burgers are simple, wholesome and very good. These are a particularly good kid-friendly veggie burger recipe.

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Tofu Burger Recipe

Super quick to mix up, this veggie burger recipe is incredibly easy but the results are excellent.

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Quinoa Burgers

Moist and delicious quinoa burgers with cannellini beans, herbs and spices. These tasty patties are another quick and easy option.

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A Healthy Choice?

Veggie burgers must be the most famous and popular of all vegetarian foods. But let's face it. A lot of commercial vegetarian burgers just taste "fake" and rarely make a healthy choice.

Of course they have some big advantages. They are convenient and they taste like meat (a matter of opinion, I concede) which is great if you are a vegetarian but miss the taste and texture of meat.

They also "work" like meat so in a lot of meals you can make a straight swap with the meat. You can put them in a bun, serve them with vegetables, salad, fries or whatever your usual side dishes are. That's a really big plus when you are a new vegetarian or if you are a vegetarian living in a non-vegetarian household.

Homemade

Homemade veggie burgers are generally less meat-like than commercial varieties but they win easily on taste and nutrition. Making your own means burgers that are delicious, convenient and actually good for you. You also know what goes into them so you can control the salt and fat content as well as the calories.

Cooking Veggie Burgers

There is no denying that vegetarian burgers are generally more delicate to handle than meat varieties so you have to be a little more careful when cooking them. While that might be a pain, console yourself that this has a lot to do with the absence of fat in your burgers.

This is why it's easiest to fry veggie burgers. They stay together well and the oil gives them a wonderful golden appearance. Use a thin layer of sunflower or canola oil on a frying pan or skillet. Make sure the oil is really hot before you start frying and cook the burgers in small batches, wiping the pan clean and replacing the oil regularly.

Low Fat Veggie Burgers

The good news is that many of these veggie burger recipes can be adapted very easily for the oven to keep them really low fat. Lightly brush a pan or tray with oil (you don't need much) and bake the burgers for about 20 minutes. Ideally, you should brush the tops of the burgers with a little oil too. Oven cooked veggie burgers are less golden in colour and more crumbly in texture but they will taste delicious. Try cooking this lentil burger in the oven. It works a treat.

My favourite way to cook burgers is by lightly frying them for a few minutes, then transferring them to the oven for 10 minutes or so. This is handy for keeping them hot but seems to improve their appearance and texture too.

Freezing Veggie Burgers

You can freeze the burgers before frying or after. I personally find it handiest to freeze them after frying. Just leave the burgers until completely cold, and then freeze in bags or trays.

When you want to use them, defrost thoroughly and then reheat in a hot oven for about 10 minutes. You can heat in the microwave but the texture is better from the oven.

Veggie Burger Recipe Tips

Use a food processor. For most of these vegetable burger recipes, you really need a food processor. You can mash ingredients by hand for some but you may find that the texture is too coarse meaning that the patties will fall apart much more easily.

Make lots! When I make veggie burgers, I cook in bulk for the freezer. Most of these recipes are really easy to make but I figure if you are pulling out the food processor, a big batch is as easy to make as a small one.

Vegetarian burgers are incredibly kid friendly. Serve them with homemade oven fries and ketchup for a healthy dinner treat. Vegetarian burgers are officially the favourite dinner of my 4 year old - and believe me, she can do fussy when she wants to ;-) Tofu burgers are the current favourite in my house.

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