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If you spend much time poking around in the food blog world, you may come away thinking that January is National Quinoa Month.  I’ve noticed that, in particular, there are a lot of vegetable quinoa burger recipes popping up.

Great idea, I thought.  What I tried to take away from all of these recipes was some sort of quinoa burger that was hearty, kid friendly and super tasty.  Most of all, I wanted a healthy veggie burger.  If you’ve ever looked at the ingredient list on frozen veggie burgers, you’ve probably wondered if they were really food, or the output of a university science class.

Like a lot of my recipes, especially the ones I scrap together on the weekends, there’s a heavy influence from what is in our refrigerator that’s hitting the use-by wall.  This time around it was red pepper and broccoli.  So they’re in.  And what goes great with both of those ingredients?  Spinach.  Garlic too.  What I came up with was a pretty tasty veggie burger recipe that’ll trump anything in the frozen food aisle.

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For the vegetable mixture, I was pulling together leftovers to get about 1 cup of vegetables.  I put a sliced medium red pepper, a handful of steamed broccoli and some cooked spinach into a food processor and pulsed until it was well chopped.  Put the vegetables into a large mixing bowl and add the breadcrumbs, cheese and herbs

Basically, you want to get to about 1 cup of chopped veggies.

These have some serious next day appeal too as the garlic really popped when I had them as a snack.  The next time around I’ll double up what I make so that I’ll have some healthy lunch meals throughout the week.

  • 2 cups Cooked Quinoa
  • 4 Garlic Cloves
  • 1/3 cup Frozen Spinach
  • 1/3 cup Frozen Broccoli
  • 1/3 cup Red Pepper Chopped
  • 2 Large Eggs, Beaten
  • 1 cup Toasted (Panko) Breadcrumbs
  • 2/3 cup Cheddar Cheese
  • 2 tablespoons Fresh Herbs Basil, Cilantro or Parsley
  • 1/4 Teaspoon Cayenne Pepper optional
  • 1/4 Teaspoon Smoked Paprika optional
  1. Cook the frozen spinach and broccoli according to package instructions. Then drain them and place them in a food processor with the garlic and red pepper and pulse until they are chopped thoroughly.

  2. Add the beaten eggs and breadcrumbs to form a batter that you can scoop onto a hot pan.  It won’t be as firm as burger meat, but it shouldn’t be runny like pancake batter

  3. Season with salt & pepper, optionally add the cayenne and paprika.

  4. Bring a large skillet up to medium high heat and add a small amount of olive oil. Place the sliders into the skillet and gently press them down. Cook for 4-5 minutes per side until browned and crispy. 

Featured on: 
Oh My Veggies: 40 Vegetarian Quinoa Recipes, March 2013
Featured Recipe on Cooking Quinoa, April 2013
Acting Balanced: 25 fabulous Back-To-School lunch ideas, August 2013
Hello, Wonderful: 10 Yummy Ways for Kids to Try Quinoa, September 2014