Super flavorful Homemade Black Bean Burgers are as easy as combining black beans together with a slew of flavorful ingredients, like garlic, red onion, cumin, cilantro, and sriracha. A little egg and breadcrumbs help hold the patty together, and you’ve got a super hearty, flavorful, and freezer-friendly homemade black bean burger. No more $8 restaurant veggie burgers for me!
How Many Burgers Does This Recipe Make?
This recipe makes six decent-sized black bean burgers. And don’t worry, if you can’t eat all six within a few days, they’re freezer friendly! Note: The recipe and price breakdown below are for the burger only. Everyone likes something different on their burger, so I decided not to include buns and toppings in the recipe or price breakdown.
Are They Freezer-Friendly?
Since I cook for just myself, I cooked two of my patties and froze the rest. Just wrap the raw patties in plastic wrap and then place them in a zip top freezer bag. To cook later, thaw the patty for 30 seconds in the microwave then finish cooking in a skillet as described in the recipe below.
What Toppings are Good on a Black Bean Burger?
I went with traditional mustard, tomato, lettuce, and red onion, but you could really have a lot of fun with the toppings. You could do a southwest spin and add some chipotle mayo, cheddar cheese, and jalapeños. Or how about a BBQ version with BBQ sauce and pepper jack cheese? A few avocado slices with any of the above themes would also be really nice. And you definitely need to try some Comeback Sauce on there!
Are These Black Bean Burgers Spicy?
Despite having sriracha as one of the ingredients, I don’t find these black bean burgers to be spicy at all. The sriracha just adds another subtle layer of flavor. If you want your black bean burgers to be spicy, simply double the sriracha, or add a jalapeño to the food processor when you’re processing your ingredients together.
Do I Have to Use a Food Processor?
You can make these black bean burgers without a food processor, but it’s a whole lot easier with one. :) To make the black bean burgers without a food processor, just finely mince the red onion, garlic, and sriracha by hand. Mash the black beans by hand (either with a fork or with a potato masher), then stir everything together by hand.
Can I Bake Them?
I don’t suggest baking the black bean burgers because you won’t get the nice browning on the outside of the burger, which provides extra flavor and texture to the burger.
Can I Skip the Egg?
I tried to make these black bean burgers without the egg, but unfortunately, they just don’t hold together in the skillet (they turn into something more like refried beans). You may be able to do something like a flaxseed egg replacer, but I haven’t tested this.
P.S. This black bean burger recipe is basically a variation on my Homemade Falafel recipe, which is one of the best things I’ve ever eaten.
Homemade Black Bean Burgers
Servings 6Ingredients
- 2 15oz. cans black beans ($0.96)
- 1/4 red onion ($0.11)
- 1 clove garlic ($0.08)
- 1/4 bunch fresh cilantro* ($0.20)
- 1 Tbsp sriracha ($0.11)
- 1 Tbsp mayonnaise ($0.09)
- 1 tsp ground cumin ($0.10)
- 1.5 Tbsp soy sauce ($0.09)
- 1/4 tsp pepper ($0.03)
- 1 large egg ($0.23)
- 1 cup plain breadcrumbs ($0.26)
- 2 Tbsp cooking oil ($0.08)
Instructions
- Rinse and drain the canned black beans. Add the black beans to a food processor along with the red onion, garlic, cilantro, sriracha, mayonnaise, cumin, soy sauce, and pepper. Pulse the ingredients until they are evenly mixed, but still slightly chunky.
- Transfer the black bean mixture to a bowl and add one large egg and 1 cup breadcrumbs. Stir the ingredients together until they're evenly combined. Let the mixture sit for about 5 minutes.
- Divide the black bean mixture into six equal portions, then shape each portion into a patty, about 3.5 inches in diameter, ½-inch thick.
- To cook the black bean burgers, heat 1Tbsp cooking oil in a skillet over medium heat. Once the oil is hot, add a few of the black bean burgers and cook for about 4-5 minutes on each side, or until they are well browned and heated through. Repeat with more oil and the rest of the patties until they're all cooked.
- Place each patty in a bun, add your favorite toppings, and enjoy!
See how we calculate recipe costs here.
Equipment
Notes
Nutrition
Have you tried this recipe?Mention @budgetbytes or tag #budgetbytes on Instagram!Updates to the old recipe: I eliminated the Worcestershire sauce from the original recipe so this recipe would actually be vegetarian (because if you’re making a black bean burger, I’m guessing you want it to be vegetarian!). I also swapped canned beans for home-cooked black beans, because I figure most people will have canned on hand. I used cilantro in place of parsley because that’s what I had on hand, but you can use whichever one you prefer! If you’d like a copy of the old recipe, simply email us at support@budgetbytes.com and we can send you a pdf.
How to Make Black Bean Burgers – Step By Step Photos
Rinse and drain two 15oz. cans of black beans. Add them to a food processor along with ¼ of a red onion, 1 clove of garlic, ¼ bunch of cilantro (about ½ cup), 1 Tbsp sriracha, 1 Tbsp mayonnaise, 1 tsp cumin, 1.5 Tbsp soy sauce, and ¼ tsp pepper.
Pulse the ingredients together until they’re mostly mixed. I like to leave it just a little chunky, but fairly even.
Add the black bean mixture to a large bowl along with one egg and 1 cup of breadcrumbs.
Combine the black bean mixture with the breadcrumbs and eggs. I like to let this mixture sit for about five minutes to let the breadcrumbs absorb some of the moisture.
Divide the mixture into six equal portions and shape them into patties (about ½ cup of mixture each, 3.5″ diameter, ½” thick).
Add a ½ Tbsp cooking oil to a skillet and heat over medium. When the oil is hot, add a couple of patties and cook for about 4-5 minutes on each side, or until they are nicely browned and heated through. Repeat with more oil and patties until the desired number are cooked (or freeze the rest, see the info above the recipe for instructions on how to freeze).
Top your black bean burger with your favorite toppings and enjoy!!
These were great! We are meat eaters trying to add some vegetarian meals in and this one is a keeper! It’s very easy and the red onion and cilantro add such wonderful flavor. Thank you!
Hi can these be BBQ’d? on the grill or perhaps on a cast iron pan in the bbq?
Yep! I’d probably do them in a pan or with some foil over the grates because they are a bit more delicate than a traditional burger.
As usual with budget bytes, a great, straightforward recipe with ingredients I generally have on hand.
Made a batch today. Added in red/yellow pepper and carrots to the mix since I had some that needed to be used up. These were delicious!
this is my go to black bean burger recipe that I keep coming back to for my family. so good! thank you!
Is there anything I can substitute for the mayo?
I don’t have a suggestion off-hand, unfortunately. I would need to know the purpose of the substitute (just don’t like mayo, avoiding eggs, etc.) before offering some suggestions, and then in a recipe like this, it’s probably best to test the substitutes before saying whether they will or won’t work.
I just don’t like Mayo :)
Amazing and husband approved with the first bite. By the fifth bite, oh yeh we could keep this in the freezer and on and on. Thank you, ma’am. Badass recipe
Easy and tastes great
I had an epic fail with this one, haha. Think I inadvertently turned the mixture into a puree and then it had no hold. Tasted good as a dip, though! Eek
I made these and I only tweaked two things, but this is an incredible “base” recipe that you can tweak to your individual tastes. My only changes were I added leftover roast corn and I used instant pot Cuban black beans. These burgers came out flavorful and filling. Broccoli and cheese baked potatoes and a simple salad made this a fantastic dinner.
Wow! I have been a vegetarian for over 35 years. I think I have had a bean burger in just about every restaurant, tried all store brands, etc. Usually can’t complain about most but think bean burgers tend to sometimes be ‘over-spiced.’ This home made burger was exceptional. It seemed too simple and easy to make to be this good? I made it exactly as directed but left out sriracha because I am a wimp for heat. I don’t have a food processor so mashed down canned beans and then used my immersion blender to combine everything before I mixed in breadcrumbs (used plain panko that is all I had around). Refrigerated for a bit to firm up then wrapped the burgers in lightly greased foil and grilled them medium high heat 8 minutes each side, served on buns with guac and fresh tomato. We used tortilla chips on the side to pick up pieces that fell – perfect accompaniment! They didn’t really need anything else, they were that good! I usually like to make black bean recipes with dried beans (I think they taste better) but honestly, wouldn’t change anything as directed in this recipe. Sorry I waited so long to make these, totally a keeper! Thank you for this!
I like to use wheat germ in place of the bread crumbs for an extra nutritional punch!
Made this for the first time today – they’re so delicious! My partner and I really enjoyed it- we’ve put leftovers in the freezer but this recipe is super easy and didn’t take too much time to make with a food processor.
I left out the onion, cilantro and sriracha because I didn’t have them to hand. We like things spicy so I added an extra clove of garlic and used hot sauce in place of sriracha. Otherwise I followed the recipe as written. The burgers had great flavour and held together very well. Thank you for another fantastic recipe!
Not a bad meal, coming from a meat-eater who is also feeding meat-eaters. Trying to spice things up with some vegetarian meals and this one is solid. I do find that (perhaps this is true with all black bean burgers) I had to moisten this up with a fair bit of condiments. Held together well. Nice crisp outside.
These were great! I made mine “Smash” style and it resulted in a crispy, somewhat “airier” texture. Note that they don’t shrink up on the skillet like a traditional burger would. I think after sitting in the fridge for a while, and choosing to not smash the patties down will actually improve the texture when served on a bun. Taste wise they were great! I added a little Cayenne and Chili Powder for some extra kick ;)
That said, the crispy, airy, “smash” style patty was delicious and actually would be amazing served over a bed of grit cakes or hash browns, topped with fried eggs, salsa, cilantro-lime crema, avocado, and hot sauce so I will definitely be trying that :)