The Everything Beans e-Book (recipe: Black Bean Burgers)
Beans are a staple in our home and I’m fortunate that both Danny and the boys enjoy them any way I serve them. While they insist they don’t get tired of bean & cheese burritos or Frijoles rancheros, I sometimes feel like I want to mix things up in the bean department.
Enter a new e-book from Katie Kimball, The Everything Beans Book: 30 Frugal, Nutrient-Packed Recipes for Every Eater.
Perfect! Back in January, Katie of Kitchen Stewardship and I shared a drink at Blissdom where she told me about the exciting new project she was working on. If I wasn’t already convinced that a bean cookbook sounded right up my alley, a sample of Katie’s Black Bean Brownies was the clincher. They were moist, rich, and totally credible, – and yes, the recipe is in the book (as Grain-Free Fudgy Brownies).
The Everything Beans Book
Since my time with Katie, all the recipes have been tested, the writing completed, and The Everything Beans Book is now available. I have to tell you, I’m eating up my copy.
Hit the jump to read more about the bean cookbook, get a recipe for a healthy burger, and enter to win your very own copy of Katie’s e-book. (Sorry! this giveaway has ended)
In-depth Introduction
A comprehensive twenty-four page introduction details everything one needs to know about cooking with beans including:
- Nutritional benefits of beans.
- How to prepare beans, both canned and dried.
- How to store beans.
- How (and why) to sprout beans.
- Menu planning featuring beans.
- Why you should incorporate beans into your diet.
- Special diet tips, Gluten-Free, kosher, etc.
Recipes that Rock!
The Everything Beans Book contains thirty well-written and thoroughly researched recipes featuring lentils, chickpeas, and of course, many varieties of beans.
The recipes are family friendly, hunger-inducing, and will leave you wanting to cook the book from cover to cover. And I intend to.
Click here to view more details and to scroll through the recipe titles in the Table of Contents.
Recipe: Mexican Black Bean Burgers
One of our favorite recipes from the cookbook were these hearty bean burgers. What a fantastic way to make beans the star of the meal!
I’ve adapted the recipe to suit our family. The legumes are canned (that’s all I had around), and the vegetables are sautéed, as the kids and Danny don’t love raw onion/garlic. I also grilled them on our Breville Smart Grill
, which we use for winter grilling, but a cast iron pan works just fine, too.
Guess what? My boys (3 & 5, remember?) ate these faster than they do a regular hamburger. Yay! Another meatless meal to add to the menu plan.
Black Bean Burgers
Ingredients
- 1 small onion chopped
- 1/2 red pepper chopped
- 1 Tablespoon olive oil
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1/4 cup fresh cilantro leaves
- 2 jalapenos optional, seeded
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1 can black beans drained and rinsed
- 1 1/2 cup cooked green lentils I used canned
- 1 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon pepper
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup bread crumbs
Instructions
- Open cans of black beans and brown or green lentils, rinse them well with cold water, and drain them in a small sieve.
- Heat olive oil in a small sauté pan. Roughly chop onion and red pepper; peel garlic. Sauté vegetables in the oil until they have softened, about five minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool.
- Pulse the sautéed onion, pepper, garlic in a food processor, along with the fresh cilantro and optional jalepeno, until finely chopped. Add the beans and lentils and process until pasty. If your food processor is a bit weak, you may want to tackle this in two batches. (I only have a mini food processor, but I did it in three batches and was fine.)
- When mostly smooth, add salt, pepper, and the eggs. Process until combined and then add 3/4 of cup of bread crumbs and process briefly until incorporated. Give a little stir around the very center for anything your blade may have missed. If your food processor is on the small side, you may wish to remove the legume/vegetable mixture to a bowl and simply stir in the rest of the ingredients. (this is what I did!)
- Add more bread crumbs bit by bit until the mixture starts sticking together. It is now ready to form patties.
- Put some flour in a salad bowl to use in flouring your hands and the outside of the patties. Form 1/2- to 3/4-inch thick patties. The patties might seem a little fragile, but you don't want them too stiff or they might dry out and get crumbly once cooked.
- Cook in a well-greased skillet over medium to medium-high heat, or an indoor grill, for about 5-8 minutes on each side, turning at least once for even doneness. You can add oil in between sides, especially if you want a nice even browning look, or if you're using a cast iron skillet.
- Serve between two buns with an assortment of condiments and favourite toppings. Keep with the Mexican theme and offer fresh peppers, pickled jalapenos, avocado slices and salsa.
Notes
Nutrition
Giveaway
**This giveaway is now closed. Congratulations to the winners, Gwen, Amy A, and Coutney!**
Katie has kindly offered three copies of The Everything Beans Book to giveaway to Simple Bites readers!
To enter the giveaway, simply leave a comment below and tell me something YOU like to make with beans or other legumes. Falafel? Chili? Quesedillas? I’d love to hear how you serve them.
Good luck to all!
Comments close at 11:46 EST on Saturday, March 19. Winners will be notified via email and announced Sunday in the link love (and look for a coupon code, too!).
Well I am not very creative with beans, a big reason why I am entering this! We don’t eat them a lot, I occasionally add them to stew or cook them and serve them as a side. I’d love to learn more ways to use them! 🙂
I love to make black beans as a side dish – just saute 1/2 an onion in some olive or coconut oil, throw in the beans and some chili powder and red pepper flakes. Great with chicken, shrimp or steak or wrapped in a tortilla.
Beans are a staple at our house! We eat a lot of black beans, kidney beans, and chickpeas and I’m always looking for creative ways to use them. Most often we eat them in quesadillas, soups, chili, stir fry, and salad.
@Wendy, that’s a really clever idea with the white bean pizza sauce. I’ll have to try that.
My New Year’s Resolution was to add more beans into my life. So far my favourite bean recipe has been butternut squash and black bean chili. I need more inspiration though. It’s not easy finding good bean recipes so thanks for the heads up about this new e-book!
For me, beans are our “convenience food.” I soak ’em, toss ’em in the crockpot with whatever I have on hand (stocks, vegetables, etc.) and call it bean soup. However, I have been experimenting with making more meals featuring beans as an economical source of protein.
I make black bean soup a lot. 🙂
I love beans! I especially enjoy making salads and burger with them. Can’t wait to check out this cookbook.
I cook large batches of beans, freeze them & pull them out for chili, soup, rice dishes, whatever sounds good at the time. I’d love a book with new ideas!
I love beans!! We like to make nachos with black beans, corn and ro-tel tomatoes. Top with lettuce, tomato, sour cream and salsa…Very Good!
I love to make some good chili with all different beans. I would love to make black bean burgers but I never have. This would be a great book for me.
I love beans. I was a vegetarian through my late teens volunteering at a food co-op and cooperatively owned restaurant. I have way more vegetarian cookbooks than traditional ones but am always looking for new ways to cook my favorite ingredient. Please add me to the list of people psyched over this booklet
I like to make quesadillas with black beans, bell peppers, corn, and mushrooms that are first grilled on the stove with some olive oil and red pepper flakes. Then I heat up a whole wheat tortilla and either mozzarella or pepper jack cheese, add the veggies, and fold into a quesadilla. Yum! I have tried a recipe online for black bean brownies, but I am interested to see what this one will be like!
I like to add beans to chili, as well as, making black bean soup. Throwing black beans in burritos or a variety of beans in soups always makes me feel healthier and more “value oriented”. Good bean recipes/experiences helps my family be more open to trying more bean recipes. We just had the French lentil soup and they were over-the-top excited.
Oh wow those burgers look great! I must try them sometime this week..
What i’d love to make with lentils and black beans is some kind of houmous dip/spread! Works great on your good ‘ol sandwich for lunch.. I must try it some time!
What a great sounding e-book, Aimee! I’ve not made black bean burgers before, but this recipe looks like just the incentive to try it! YUM!
Vegetarian chili with extra kidney beans and black beans
We love to eat beans of all kinds. I must admit our favorite right now is a slightly adapted version of the black bean burrito recipe you posted not to long ago. My husband actually gets excited when he hears that’s on the weekly menu despite being a confirmed meat lover : )
We use dry pinto beans most often to make our own refried beans; actually my husband does it. I never liked refried beans before his. My 1-year-old daughter loves them too! Now we use them when we eat any kind of taco, burrito and our own creation that we call “Guapitos.” (It is a corn tortilla sandwich with refried beans, Spanish rice, cheese, sometimes meat, and whatever toppings we have/like.) We have been wanting to eat less meat and use more beans so I have been wanting this book!
I adore sprouting pink lentils and making lentil burgers. They are fast and tasty. Mmmmm. Runner up is a fermented black bean dip. Third up is chili. Can you tell I like beans? lol
We eat beans regularly, making a big pot on Sunday and feasting on them all week. My favorite right now is black beans with tomatoes and chicken sauteed together. Delicious.
I generally make bean soup or beans and rice the most. I also try to add beans to other dishes such as tacos, burritos, and green salads. I am going to try the black bean burgers. They look delicious!
I am a garbanzo bean NUT! (or I guess legume) 😉 I LOVE hummus, chick pea burgers, I love them in a salad and I like to take a can of them, rinse them off and roast them with some olive oil, salt, pepper and a bit of cumin and cayenne. YUMMY and healthy nibbles!
Oh man… do I LOVE beans. My mom shares that even when I was a wee one I would sit at the dining room table and proclaim my love for beans over and over and over again. Nothing has changed. I use them in everything. At this moment I have some cooking in the pressure cooker for some vegetarian tortilla soup. What can’t you make with beans?
I think my favorite bean recipe is vegetarian chili, or red bean and quinoa chili.
I have a black bean and red pepper casserole recipe that is so yummy!
We love beans! I’d love to do more with dry beans!
We NEVER ate beans growing up, so I never thought I liked them. Since we started cooking for a family, I have dicovered a love for beans. We have a couple favorite “rice and bean” dishes, but I’m always looking for more options. Would love this book!
I like to use beans in chili, but my favorite way is to eat them plain with a side of cornbread!
I love making Black Bean Salsa rice
Oh, beans… We make chili (red beans), black beans and rice, burritos (pinto), lentil stew, frijoles rancheros (thanks for the recipe), taco salad, black bean hummus, a stew with yams, green peppers and black beans, black bean chili with chard, white bean and kale soup (several variations), and a few other things that I can’t think of right now. We love beans!
Sadly my bean experience involves opening the can of beans and adding to salads. I did make a pretty good black bean soup one time with black beans, chicken broth & salsa.
on of my new favorite bean recipes is for a cabbage soup with white beans- it is DELICIOUS!
This is maybe a cheat, but one of my favorite bean dishes is Trader Joe’s Giant White Beans. They come in a glass jar in tomato sauce with Greek spices. I like to either eat them straight out of the jar, put them in sandwiches, or eat them with plain pasta with olive oil and parmesan. So good and so simple!
Oooh, this book looks great! I am adding more beans into our diet now and have switched from high sodium canned to dry. Right now, I use beans primarily for chili and for a sort of black bean casserole I serve with homemade tortilla chips. Both are big hits in my house. Thanks for the giveaway!
Great inspiration about how to use beans more often. I know they are sooo good for you! (not only are they great for lowering cholesterol, and stabilizing blood sugar levels, packed with fiber – great weight control, and full of antioxidants) ! We need to eat more beans! Great idea for this collection of recipes.
I always want to cook with dried beans and yet never seem to have success – perhaps this book can straighten me out! Thanks for the chance to win! And those burgers look absolutely delish! I might have to give them a try this weekend.
Yum! I usually use beans in stews and soups but I love making them into veggie burgers! Awesome 🙂
My new fav… Turkey Chili with Kidney Beans for dinner, and enchiladas filled with leftover chili the next night! Heaven!
I love anything with Black beans, or Chickpeas. They are so verstile. Love them!!!
Tacos!
I love to make bean burgers!
well, hello. I am so happy about the book, I would love to have one, I have been searching about beans, because my Mom used to made a bean custard, and I dont have the recipe, also she made macho banana with black beans inside mmmmm, those were the days……
Two of my favorite bean recipes:
Lentil salad made with green lentils, red onion, red bell peppers, cilantro, olive oil, lime and cumin. Fresh!
“Enfrijoladas”, Mexican dish made with corn tortillas, bathed in black bean sauce and topped with cheese, onion, serranos and sour cream. Yumm!!!
We always cook our own black beans in a slow cooker with lots of water, onion salt and a little bit of canola oil. But canned beans are great for emergencies!
I am definitely making your burgers, they look amazing.
Thanks!
I LOVE frijoles rancheros, and my kids love refried beans more than taco meat in their tacos!
I’m a chili fanatic, especially in the cooler months, so beans are a must for that. I also make a pretty good rosemary and garlic white bean spread. Beans are so versatile, they can be down home good or fancied up, and even picky eaters will usually go for some beans. I’d love to some new recipes to try out!
I love beans! I use them a lot for hummus, chili, dips, on salads, tacos, with rice…etc. I’ve been wanting to check out this book so, thanks for the chance to win! 🙂
You know I read this post yesterday and went home to make some bean burgers. I did not have black beans in the can, but I did have red beans. I did not use lentils because that is just one of those foods that I am not a big fan of although they are extremely healthy for you, instead I used some aldente’ brown rice instead and added panko bread crumbs. Everything else was the same and I used a 10 inch grill pan and I gotta tellya they were delicious! Excellent recipe!
Thanks,
Richard
I’m a new convert to beans, but pretty much anything with chickpeas in it I love, especially chickpeas and couscous and veggies all stir-fried up and added in. mmmm I get new ideas from 101cookbooks as she’s a chickpea fanatic!
We eat a lot of beans around here as my husband and daughter are vegetarians. We eat falafel, dal, ful mudammas, etc. I’d love some new recipes to tempt my daughter as she won’t usually try them.
I love beans in anything, but my favorite was my grandma’s white beans with rice and pickled pork! I also have a lentil and portobello mushroom stew recipe that is amazing.