The only protein I have right now is beans. I already had beans and rice yesterday and want to pretend I’m eating a varied diet. I’m out of bread and didn’t wanna wait while making more. Pancake bean burgers, you are my answer.

I don’t have exact measurements, but if I had to guess, the recipe I use is:

1/4 cup cooked black beans

2 TBSP corn meal

1 TBSP flour

And that’s… kinda all you need to make a burger that won’t fall apart. I dunno what it is about the corn meal, but in my experience it’s absolutely vital or the burger disintegrates when I try to flip it, no matter how much extra flour I use.

The rest of this is just seasoning to my taste.

2 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp onion powder

1 tsp salt

1 tsp black pepper

1 tsp chili powder

1 tsp zatar seasoning

Bean burgers can also be hugely elevated by throwing in some minced veggies (onions, garlic, peppers, etc, also consider sautéing them with a tiny amt of oil first because more liquid = more fragile burger), but tbh I just didnt feel like it.

That’s only enough for like 1-2 burgers, so multiply for however many you want. Mash all that up with a fork and you’re set!

I treat it kinda like a smash burger. Get the pan to about a medium heat, throw in some oil and an appropriately sized ball of bean, then in the pan you can use the same fork you used to mash the beans to further shape it into a burger. Give it at least 5 mins before you flip it; I usually go closer to 10 cuz I like it crispy.

I put the burger on a pancake “bun,” grabbed some kimchi out the fridge, and bam, I got a meal I can pretend is healthy and it only took like 3 minutes of labor and 15 minutes of waiting! (not including the time I spent making pancakes but that’s also pretty quick, and definitely way faster than making bread.) Hopefully it’s also juuust pretty enough to be worth posting :)