Tired of reading 500-ingredient 2-hour quinoa burger recipes? Welcome to this healthy 30-Minute Quinoa Burger Recipe. Red lentils, quinoa, a couple spices and you’re good!
Experimenting with ingredients to form quinoa patties is quite something, let me tell you. Most recipes I’ve found have a million ingredients and/or expect you to stand in the kitchen for a good 2 hours. Umm, who has time for that on a random Wednesday evening? Not me.
I felt a bit like a witch today in the kitchen. Or like when I was a kid and experimented mixing flour and eggs and dirt from the garden and a couple daisies for decoration maybe, hehe. Only, after some experimenting I ended up with the perfect mix for a quinoa patty, not a gross mush with back yard ingredients. Phew.
Why this Quinoa Burger is so EASY
The patties have only 3 main ingredients and 3 spices! That’s it.
The bread you can obviously buy. My favorite are buns made of unbleached kamut flour that I find at my local shop. Try and find a brand that makes buns with only clean ingredients.
The toppings are up to you. I love it simple and add only lettuce, tomato and some micro-greens (which ever ones I have on hand). The patties go really well with cucumber though, too.
The sauce can be either this 5-Minute Basil Pistachio Pesto for the vegetarian version or this Out of this World Tahini Herb Sauce for the vegan version. I used the pesto but want to try soon with the Tahini Herb Sauce. You can obviously also use store-bought. Look out for only clean ingredients such as olive oil, herbs, spices, nuts, maybe parmesan and that’s it.
How to keep vegan quinoa burger patties from falling apart
The #1 ingredient to keep patties together tends to be egg. I wanted to make the patties vegan though and most vegan patties fall apart. Some recipes call for white beans as “glue” but white beans are so tasteless in my opinion that you need too many spices to make them tasty.
For these quinoa burger patties I used a combination of two secret ingredients to make them hold their shape! Red lentils and flax meal. Red lentils become pretty mushy once cooked and flax meal mixed with water becomes what many people call a “flax egg”. The flax egg and red lentil mix is responsible for the patty’s beautiful shape.
Golden Quinoa Burger every time
The secret to getting a golden and crispy quinoa burger patty is to fry them slow on low. I like heating up my pan on medium low for at least 5 minutes. I do this while I’m working on the patty dough, mixing quinoa/red lentils with flax egg. Then I add 1 Tbsp oil and wait another minute for the oil to get nice and hot. Then I carefully add the patties. The oil should be sizzling but not spraying out in all directions. I leave the patties to themselves without moving around for a good 4-5 minute, then flip and leave another 4-5 minutes.
To turn it’s easiest to work with two spatulas. I slide one under the patty and keep the other on top, flip and then slide off the second spatula I had on top (which now is the bottom).
30-Minute Quinoa Burger
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup quinoa
- 1/2 cup red lentils
- 1.5 cups water
- 1 tsp curry powder
- 1 tsp sea salt
- 1/2 tsp cumin
- 2 Tbsp flax seeds
- 2 Tbsp water
- 4 burger buns
- 4 leaves lettuce
- 4 slices tomato
- 1 hand full micro greens
- 4-8 Tbsp 5-Minute Basil Pistachio Pesto or Out of this World Tahini Herb Sauce - (links in text above)
Instructions
- Add quinoa, red lentils, curry powder, sea salt, cumin and 1.5 cups of water to a large pot, mix well and bring to the boil. Once boiling cover and immediately reduce heat to minimum. Let simmer for 12-15 minutes or until water is completely absorbed.
- In the meantime wash and dry lettuce leaves and micro greens. Wash and slice tomatoes and prepare pesto or sauce. Cut burger buns in half and add pesto or sauce on both sides.
- Preheat a large empty pan over MEDIUM-LOW heat. No oil yet.
- Dump the cooked quinoa and lentils into a bowl and fluff with a fork to release steam and cool a little. If you have more than 30 minutes you can skip this step and simply let the quinoa/red lentils cool down in the pot and mix everything in the same pot. Saves dishes but requires more waiting time.
- Grind flax meal in a coffee grinder and add to a small bowl to combine with 2 Tbsp water. Stir with a fork until all flax meal is hydrated and then add to the bowl with quinoa and lentils. Mix well with a spatula until the "flax egg" is very well incorporated and everything resembles a dough. If you can touch the quinoa by now knead it with your hands to mix in the flax egg really really well.
- Divide dough into 4 and form round thick patties the size of your burger buns.
- By now, the pan should be fairly hot. Add 1 Tbsp oil, wait about 30-60 seconds for it to heat up and then carefully place the patties in the hot pan. Fry for 3-5 minutes on one side, flip, and fry another 3-5 minutes on the other side or until golden and crispy.
- Place quinoa red lentil patties on burger buns, top with lettuce leaf, slice of tomato and micro greens.
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Kris g says
I made these primarily for my vegetarian daughter using an egg. The taste is delicious! 2 of the 4 were a little crumbly but I’ll keep trying.
DAS says
Made many vegan burgers, and usually look for recipes by a trained chef, but nothing satisfied until THIS recipe. Loved the texture, flors. Outstanding. Forgot about the attached sauces, will try those next time because I’m sure will never return to bean burgers, etc. This very old lady grateful! Now to look at your other recipes. -DAS
Jennifer s Jennings says
They tasted pretty good but were SO WET!!! They did not hold together well at all. I’m kinda bummed cause I hate tossing out food. Any idea how to thicken them up?
Lorena Grater says
Jennifer I’m so sorry to read this and I’m a bit confused as to why they were wet. Did you add dried red lentils and raw quinoa to the pot to cook? Did you fluff both once they were cooked and let all the steam out? It should rather be a sticky playdough consistency, not at all wet but rather dry.
Ja says
Added lots of chopped fresh herbs and some corn…. The flavour without is a bit so-so but the technique is helpful and the base held together (though needed a tbsp of flour eventually as was wet.
Anyway, adjust extra flavour for your own taste and they’re is great little simple fritters. Thanks!!!!
Melissa says
Hello these look great. Can they be frozen? If so, before or after you cooke them? Thanks a lot.
Lorena says
Hi Melissa, I’ve never tried freezing so I’m not 100% certain but in theory I don’t see why they wouldn’t be freezable. I would cook them first and then freeze and to defrost put back in the fridge for a couple hours and then finish off defrosting in the pan.
May says
I tried these the other day and I am making them again as we speak! You were right, I was sick of those 500-ingredient 2-hour quinoa burger recipes! haha. Simple yet delicious!thank you, Thank You, THANK YOU! for sharing this recipe Lorena!
Lorena says
May, your comment makes me so so happy! I’m so glad you like the recipe this much :D
Brittany says
These look delish. I’m actually making the quinoa/ lentil mixture now, but the quinoa isn’t opening into spirals like it should. Any idea why or what to do? I hate to start all over and cook separately but I will if necessary. I’ve even tried adding more water.
Brittany says
Actually disregard this! I just let it sit on the burner for a really long time and the quinoa eventually cooked.
Lorena says
I’m happy to hear that. Yes, if the quinoa for some reason doesn’t open up, just leave leave the lid on and let the leftover steam do the work.
Gorge Blondick says
These are the most bland and boring quinoa burgers ever. What a lazy recipe. Didn’t create flavor at all. Pass on these. Much better recipes out there.
Lorena says
I’m sorry to hear you didn’t like them. I recommend not making any of other my recipes. They will all taste bland to you.
Sally says
Aw. That was so rude. Easy and simple recipes like this make my life so much easier.
Oded says
Great recipe, they do keep together!
I added some parsley and garlic. Next time I’ll try walnuts and baked eggplant.
Thanks!
Lorena says
Thank you for coming back and leaving a commend :D I’m so glad you like them! Walnuts and eggplant sound like an amazing addition!
Nikki says
I tried these last night with the Neat Egg (egg replacer) instead of the flax seed because that’s what I had on hand. They were DELICIOUS!!! Excellent and easy recipe. We will definitely be having these again! Thank you :)
Lorena says
Hi Nikki!! Thank you so much for coming back and commenting. It’s comments like yours that keep me going :D
Dana Martin says
Could I add an egg instead of the flax if I wanted to?
Lorena says
Hi Dana, I haven’t tried it this way but theoretically it should work perfectly well, probably even better than the flax egg. Please let me know if you tried and if it worked so I can add that information to the recipe post :)
brita says
OMG these looks amazing. I seriously want one of these RIGHT now. Can’t wait to try this recipe :)
Lorena says
Thank you for your lovely comment Brita!!! :D
Teresa says
Can u use an egg if u don’t have flax?
Lorena says
You can try but I don’t think you will get the same result. An egg has more water content. The crust would probably be a softer than with the flax egg but theoretically it should still work just fine.