Double Bean Burgers {Recipe Challenge}

First off, I want to take a moment just to express my gratitude for how encouraging and supportive you all are? The comments on yesterday’s post on my decision to DNS my next race warmed my heart. There are runners out there who are fiercely competitive and unsupportive to others and do not foster a welcoming, supportive community – but none of you are these runners. I am so grateful to be part of such a kind, encouraging, and fun community as the one I’ve found here! 

Blogging may serve as an outlet for my creative urge to write and as a base for my coaching business, but over the past two years I have come to cherish the community and friends I’ve made as a running blogger so much. 

Communities such as the awesome group of female running bloggers who I’ll be finally meeting in person at the Rise.Run.Retreat in late September/early October. I registered last week and am so excited to attend! 

Friends like Meredith, who is helping me stay motivated to try new vegetarian recipes each week with our recipe challenge! Last week we made sweet potato, black bean, and quinoa burgers (here’s how Meredith’s turned out and how I did with mine); this week we endeavored to make another variety of veggie burger, using this double bean burger recipe from How Sweet It Is. 

• You can read Meredith’s take on the recipe on her blog here!

 

 

How Sweet It Is was amongst the first blogs I ever started reading back in my senior year of college (2011-2012) and I’ve been a loyal reader of hers ever since. Her chicken and dumplings are a beloved comfort food (I make them with whole wheat flour) and Ryan and I ate her easy weeknight tacos three times last week. And this recipe is what my marathon training food dreams look like – a big bowl of carby, starchy vegetables. 

Preparation

Ryan and I finished our workouts on Tuesday evening and were both hungry – not one of those nights neither of us was in the mood for a labor-intensive or time-consuming dinner. We wanted quick and easy. 

I had baked whole wheat burger rolls earlier in the day (they didn’t turn out as fluffy as normal, but that does happen with homemade bread). The preparation of the burgers themselves was ideal for a quick and easy dinner: mash the beans, mix the ingredients together, shape the burgers, and fry. Dinner was on the table in 30 minutes!

I omitted the cilantro because I forgot to purchase it at the grocery store (4 times out of 5 I will forget fresh herbs) and used rolled oats instead of whole wheat panko in a 1:1 substitution. 

Meredith did not have the same results with the recipe – her mixture was so soft and mushy that the burgers were inedible. 

Taste and Texture

I’ve tried this week’s recipe challenge recipe previously but had not made these burgers in over a year. This time, the texture was softer and more crumbly than I recall from previous times I made these – perhaps due to  my substitution of oats for panko. 

(PS. Honest runner note: whole beans make my stomach upset and are not the type of food to eat if I plan on running long or hard in the next few days, but I’ve found that mashed or pureed beans don’t cause any problems. Everyone is different, but if beans aren’t friendly to your stomach, you don’t need to write off this recipe quite yet.) 

These double bean burgers had a more umami flavor than last week’s recipe. In my opinion, that umami flavor is key to eating less meat – because the food still has that savory, earthy, meaty flavor to it. Ryan and I both enjoyed the taste of these burgers, although they did leave us craving beef burgers as well. 

 

Nutrition 

As with last week, I uploaded the recipe to My Fitness Pal. The recipe made 6 burgers. Each double bean burgers still only had 10 grams of protein on their own, but they contain far fewer carbs than last week’s recipe with 29 grams per carbs per serving. These burgers have 7 grams of fiber, 15% of daily iron, and 8 grams of healthy fats. With the homemade whole wheat burger buns and avocado, the meal totaled 19 grams of protein, which is close enough to the 20-30 grams of protein recommended for runners per meal. 

Which food blogs are your favorites?
What foods do you always forget at the grocery store?
Did you try any new recipes this week? How did they turn out?