I'm all for a cheap meal, but when my better half insisted we should try this Cheaper n' Dirt veggie burger patty recipe he found on Reddit I was beyond skeptical. One glance at the ingredients and all I could think was, what about spices? My mind was already racing with ideas on how to doctor it up before a single bite. But after much insistence and my own curiosity, I decided to whip it up to see if you really could make a good cheap burger recipe for less than $1 per serving.
To start, this recipe requires eight ingredients: bell pepper, Vidalia onion, yellow onion, canned black beans, breadcrumbs, an egg, garlic, and barbecue sauce - oh, and salt and black pepper to taste but that's kind of a given. You take the canned black beans and "smash to smithereens". Next, chop the onions and bell peppers as tiny as possible. Then you mix in all the other ingredients, form your patties, and fry away.
Carissa Stanz
After following the instructions, I came out with four decent sized burger patties a little on the wet side. Not exactly perfect burger form. A few more breadcrumbs for binding would do the trick, but I was sticking to the original instructions so I forwent the addition.
I turned the stove on medium high heat and cooked the patties in a dash of extra-virgin olive oil for a couple minutes on each side until browned. I noticed they were still undercooked in the middle so I popped them in the convection oven to finish off.
Then I taste tested and was a bit surprised. I have to say, if you really like onions, you'll probably dig this recipe, but all in all, it wasn't half bad. In fact, doctored up the right way, I would definitely eat it again.
And doctoring it up is precisely what we did. Although the recipe suggests serving with grilled onion and carrots, we omitted the sides and piled on some much-needed toppings between a toasted Kaiser bun.
Carissa Stanz
I searched around in the fridge and decided to go with some mixed greens, red onion, sliced tomatoes, and some melted pepper jack cheese. A few dashes of hot sauce from there and we were in business. After biting into the burger, we had a winner. It was delish.
While this is what I decided to go for, you could also try adding on some of these topping suggestions for a delicious burger:
- Blue cheese
- Grilled red pepper
- Sour cream
- Fresh avocado
- A squeeze of lemon juice
- Cheddar cheese
- American cheese
- Grilled pineapple
Make it as simple or over-the-top as you like!
Although next time I would make a few minor cheap tweaks like adding in some cumin, paprika, cayenne, and perhaps even a mashed sweet potato to the patty, this burger recipe is a good base. It's super cheap, about 65-cents per patty cheap, and can be made to your liking with a few ingredients you already have on hand.
All in all, I'd say this was a good learning experience. Give something a try you never thought you may like and you never know where inspiration will come from.
