Trying to cut back on meat? Or just looking for something new for dinner? These black bean burgers are healthy and super easy to make.  And delicious!

This past week Thomas and I decided to switch things up a bit. We usually eat meat for dinner, but this time we tried something different. After watching a documentary I realized that we definitely eat too much meat. I figured it wouldn’t hurt us to go a week without meat and try some new recipes.

I found this recipe on allrecipes.com, but altered it a little bit.

Healthy Black Bean Burgers:

Ingredients: 

• 1 (16 ounce) can of black beans – here in Spain they don’t really have many canned beans so we soaked ours over night, cooked them, and then measured them out.
• 1/2 green bell pepper, minced
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1/2 onion, minced
• 1 egg
• 1/2 tablespoon of chili powder
• 1 tablespoon cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon of Thai chili sauce or hot sauce (I used Valentino)
• 1/2 cup of bread crumbs

**Note: If you like a lot of heat use 1 tablespoon of chili powder and 1 teaspoon of hot sauce to really give it an extra kick!

Instructions: 

1. If grilling the burgers, preheat on high. Lightly oil a sheet of aluminum foil. If you plan to bake them , preheat the oven to 375 degrees , and lightly oil a baking sheet.
2. In a medium bowl, mash black beans up with a fork until they are thick and pasty.
3. Add in your finely minced green peppers, onion, and garlic. Then stir into the mashed up beans
4. In a small bowl, stir together the egg, chili powder, cumin, and chili sauce.
5. Stir the egg mixture into the mashed beans. Mix in bread crumbs until the mixture becomes sticky and holds together. Divide the mixture up into four patties.
6. If you plan to grill them, place the patties on foil, and grill for about 8 minutes on each side. If baking, place the patties on the baking sheet, and bake for about 10 minutes on each side.
7. Top the burgers with your favorites. We decided on roasted sweet potatoes, tomatoes, and avocado. The sweet potatoes and the avocado really balanced out the heat!

***Note: If you have a food processor feel free to put the green pepper, onions, and garlic in there. We just don’t have one so we minced everything up and it worked out just fine.

Give them a try and let me know what you think. Enjoy!