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Quinoa and Sweet Potato Veggie Burgers

Admittedly, veggie burgers probably aren’t the first thing that comes to mind when you think of quinoa and sweet potatoes, but I cannot describe just how well these two ingredients work to form the base of these burgers. The flavors are, in a word, bright. The sweetness of the potatoes with the fresh parsley, sunflower seeds, and protein-packed quinoa… It’s like a garden in your mouth.

When I was working on the “perfect” veggie burger recipe several months ago, I learned a lot of lessons about getting the right meaty texture that holds together like a burger (namely, using rolled oats to soak up moisture and ground flaxseed to hold everything together). Those same lessons have been applied, but we’re taking the flavors in a completely different direction.

In one sense, this sweet potato & quinoa burger is the perfect yang to my classic veggie burger’s yin. If you want something deep and earthy and full of umami, see The Perfect Veggie Burger recipe. But if a bright, fresh, sweet, and flavorful meal that will still put some meat on your bones is what you’re looking for, this recipe has you covered.

Quinoa_Veggie_Type

Makes 5-6 Patties

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup cooked quinoa
  • 2 medium sweet potatoes
  • 2/3 cup rolled oats
  • 1/3 cup fresh parsley
  • 1/4 cup raw sunflower seeds
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • 1-2 tablespoons soy sauce
  • 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
  • 3 tablespoons ground flaxseed

Quinoa_Veggie

Preheat the oven to 400º F

Step One

Peel the sweet potatoes and slice them into 1/2 inch rounds. Add these to a baking sheet and bake at 400º F for about 25-30 minutes, until thoroughly cooked and tender. This dry cooking method will seriously dry out the potatoes, but that’s what we want here.

Meanwhile, cook a batch of quinoa according to package instructions (typically 2 parts water to 1 part quinoa) until fluffy. Set both the sweet potatoes and quinoa aside for now.

Step Two

In a food processor, combine the parsley, garlic, and sunflower seeds and just pulse them several times to make a kind of chunky pesto (which is incredibly delicious by itself…). Set this aside.

Step Three

The flaxseed here is used like an egg, which will bind the ingredients together and create a much more “meaty” texture in the finished burgers. To do this, combine 3 tablespoons ground flaxseed with about 1/4 cup of water and set aside for 5-10 minutes until it creates a gel.

Step Four

Finally, we’re ready to actually start making the burgers! Back in the food processor, combine 1 cup of the cooked quinoa with 1 cup of the baked sweet potatoes (simply smash as many of the rounds as you can into a 1 cup measure) along with the rolled oats. Pulse this mixture until it has turned into a smooth puree. Then, add in the remaining ingredients (the parsley garlic sunflower blend, paprika, soy sauce, and flaxseed gel). Pulse several times until incorporated.

Step Five

Lower the oven heat to 325º F and measure out the burgers into 5-6 round patties, about 1/2 inch thick onto parchment paper or a Silpat. Stick in the oven and bake for about 20 minutes on one side, then carefully use a spatula to flip and cook for another 20 minutes or so until thoroughly firm. Allow to cool before serving with fresh greens, avocado, and slices of red onion. Leftovers can be stored for weeks in the freezer.

Quinoa_Veggie_Silpat

Quinoa_Veggie_Patty

37 Comments

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  1. Heck yes!! These sound amazing and I love that they’re baked up, not fried. I can’t wait to try these!! Thank you for the recipe!

    • haha, no. I used a whole wheat bun for these pictures, though, when I eat these myself it’s almost always on Ezekiel bread.

      • I always eat my veggie burgers on Ezekial bread too! I’m loving your blog. So many great idea for simple, delicious vegan cooking. I’ve made your vegan pancakes lots of times already. Excited to try some of your other recipes. Thanks for what you do!

  2. My goodness, SO much better than the frozen ones (which tend to taste like cardboard..) Truly an incredible recipe. Thank you so much sharing!!

    • Awesome! Thanks Scylla, I’m so glad you liked them 🙂

      Oh and in terms of sticking, okay, I just re-read the post and realized I didn’t mention the use of parchment paper or a silpat, as pictured, which is really important to prevent sticking (as you have learned!). Sorry about that, I’ll updated the post shortly.

  3. Eeep, just one small issue I forgot to ask about though… what do you use to keep the patties from sticking to the pan?? I should have thought of this, but alas I forgot and had some sticking issues (thankfully not too serious though!)

  4. Mine didn’t look sweet potato orange like yours, nor could I really taste that in them. Very, very firm; nice texture, but the flavour was mostly that of the flax. Is 3 tablespoons flax correct?

    • Hmm, were you using orange sweet potatoes? There’s many different varieties of yams/sweet potatoes and I used the orange ones here, which tend to work better I think. Yes, the ground flaxseed helps hold these burgers together but the flax flavor really blended into the background, in my experience.

  5. Definitely used orange sweet potatoes. Maybe it is my flax. I’ll buy some from a different source and try again. Thanks for getting back to me.

  6. These are simply amazing. I substituted slivered almonds for pumpkin seeds and turned out so yummy. I reheat for lunch with 1/2 avocado and a champagne vinegar and so delicious!

  7. HI Andrew! These are now my favourite veggie burgers! (Canadian spelling of favourite. Sorry). You mention freezing them after they’re cooked, but could I freeze the “raw” burgers and cook them after thawing? – Cheers, Joanne

  8. Looking for a good veggie burger recipe and will definitely try this one! Question – I’m fine with using eggs in the recipe. If I didn’t use the 3 Tbs ground flax seed, would I just replace it with 1 egg? Thanks!

  9. Andrew, I love this burger! I had to substitute cilantro for the parsley, because it was what I had on hand and it turned out wonderfully. My kids asked for more burgers, just what I love to hear 🙂

  10. These turned out great! The first veggie burger recipe that I have tried that stayed together. Yummy with good texture. I scrubbed my potatoes and left the skin on out of laziness.

  11. Can i ommit the sunflower seeds? Cooking for a toddler and sunflower seeds can be a choaking hazard. Hes not allergic , should i sub tahini for the same flavor, or just ommit them … Will it make a big diffrence.

  12. Andrew, these are incredible!! I also tried your chai infused pumpkin pie smoothie last night and loved it. I’m hooked on your website now. Thank you so much for sharing these recipes and helping us to become healthier and get away from the S.A.D!

    • Hi Jeanine! This just made my day 🙂 I’m so happy to hear that my recipes have been helpful for you. Thanks for the nice comments!

  13. Hi I made these, posted about them on my blog and linked back to you 🙂 I used some homemade radish top pesto to replace the seeds, parsley and garlic and reduced the flax, which I added dry. Verdict? Delicious!

    • I don’t know… Whatever you like, really. I could see any typical hamburger condiments working well with these burgers.

  14. Hey Andrew!

    Thank you, first of all, for this amazing blog, and this amazing recipe. You improved my life just by sharing this knowledge with the world. Your recipes are amazing!

    Just one quick sugestion for your website that, although I don’t think absolutely necessary, might be a plus. Can you ad conversion to celsius and kilos, grams, etc…

    It would make recipes much more easy to understand for your foreign friends 🙂

    A hug, and good luck

    • Hi João, thank you! you’re very welcome!

      I totally understand the issue of unit conversions and I’ve often thought about this. If I can find a non-confusing solution to this, I’d love to add something.

      I actually just looked for a calculator that would take a recipe and convert it automatically but couldn’t find anything. In the meantime, Google works quite well (i.e. “1 cup in ml”).

  15. Hi Andrew, another winner!! Made these for dinner last night (double batch), and even while I was forming them into burgers I could tell they were not like any of the veg burgers I have made before. These ones are really firm, especially when I turned them over after 20mins in the oven (where others just never make it, they just fall apart). All confirmed by my son (who loves your website), when the first thing he said at the table was “Mum, these are very different, they don’t crumble apart like all the other veg burgers! Are these from the One Ingredient Chef?” (see, you’ve got yourself a name in our household already for successful and tasty recipes, lol!).
    Firmness aside, they also tasted great! I couldn’t seem to pulse the sunflower seeds very well, so they ended up pretty much whole in the burgers, which added a delicious crunch. This will be my go-to recipe for veg burgers from now on, thank you for sharing.

  16. Hi, can these be fried as well in coconut oil? So their not too greasy, but quick to cook up after spending the evening before making them.
    Just a for a quick bite with salad after work.

    • Hmm.. I don’t do a lot of frying with oil and I couldn’t say whether that would work, but I’d definitely recommend cooking them in the oven (and if you need to make them ahead of time, reheating in the microwave would be fine).

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