A delicious and healthy replacement for meat-burgers! Vegetarian and gluten free (but you wont notice the difference; believe me ’cause I’m a carnivore!)

 

 

Why healthy?

-30% of lentil calories are protein, which includes amino acids. Every fitnessfreak can tell you these are very important nutrients for your muscles (its why we eat loads of eggs and shakes)

-it contains a lot of fiber, minerals, iron,  folate (important for cell division and repair) and vitamin B1 (an essential nutrient; there’s a lot of it in whole grain bread and pasta. So if you’re like me and prefer not to eat wheatproducts its important to have legumes in your diet for fiber and B1).

Perfect replacement for meat

Im not vegetarian. If I eat vegetarian I often feel left with a craving for meat. I can assure you these burgers look and taste like minced meat and are pretty heavy. So this is also a very good replacement for the carnivors that like to have a veggie-day once every week : )

 

So here are the ingredients:

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  • 2.5 cups/300 gr  cooked lentils
  • 1 small onion
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/2 bell pepper
  • 1 finely chopped red chili pepper
  • 1/8 cup oats (not really necesary, but good for nutrients and structure)
  • 1/3 cup or 1,5 part mozzarella
  • 2 garlic cloves
  • 40 gr cornmeal (if on a gluten free diet, make sure the cornmeal is actually glutenfree: not all of them are)
  • 1.5 tsp cayenne pepper
  • 1 tsp olive or coconut oil
  • add pepper and salt to own taste (goes for the red pepper and cayenne too)

 

Directions

photo 1(8)

  • Grind the lentils (easiest in a food processor)
  • Finely dice the union, bell pepper, chili pepper
  • Put all the ingredients into a large mixing bowl.
  • Add the 2 raw eggs and mix.
  • Add  cheese, garlic, cayenne, salt, and pepper and mix again.
  • Divide the mixture into equally sized portions, roll into balls and flatten into patties.
  • Spread the cornmeal on a baking tray (or a very clean kitchen counter) to coat the patties.
  • You can either cook the burgers in a big frying pan (pref. with coconut oil) at medium/high temperature for about 5 minutes per side… or bake them in a pre-heated oven (180 celcius/350 fahrenheit) for about 20 minutes. They’re ready when they have a crunchy brown (not black ; ) ) outside.

photo 3(7)Tips:

  • in the pictures you can see I had problems keeping the burgers ‘in shape’. I already changed the recipe for you to prevent that from happening (coating in cornmeal. Less mozzeralla). Baking the burgers in the oven will help too. You can also use black lentils instead of the regular: black lentils are more ‘sturdy’
  • I chose to serve these burgers with salad. Theyre pretty ‘heavy’, so a light side dish is plenty. Because the burgers are spicy I like the salad to have a sweet/sour taste, so I made a simple salad with beetroot and apple.
  • I accompanied the burgers and salad with an extra ‘low fat taste sensation’: it’s very simple (I make this a lot for sauce/dip): greek yoghurt, a bit of squeezed lemon and cut mintleaves (I hate boring meals and love contrasts in tastebud sensations 😉 ).