Veggie Burgers Every Which Way, Second Edition
by Lukas VolgerGenres: Cooking / Vegan
Published on June 6, 2023
Pages: 224
An updated edition of the “wonderful”* veggie burger cookbook, with recipes and tips for making 35+ plant-based burgers
Looking for an alternative to the overprocessed burgers and faux meats in the freezer aisle? Veggie Burgers Every Which Way is here for you. This cookbook is “an in-depth veggie burger lesson” (NYT) full of unique, delicious recipes like:
- Red Lentil and Celery Root Burgers
- Spiced Carrot and Peanut Burgers
- Kale and Quinoa Burgers
- Corn Burgers with Sun-Dried Tomatoes and Goat Cheese
Over half the burgers are vegan and/or gluten-free, and so are many of the extras, including buns, sides, toppings, and condiments. And dozens of mouthwatering photos show that great-tasting veggie burgers can look spectacular, too!
*“I highly recommend . . . a really, really wonderful veggie burger cookbook.”—Tejal Rao,The New York Times
I have mixed feelings about veggie burgers. I appreciate that they are becoming more ubiquitous in restaurants and grocery stores. But, I don’t like the current obsession with making them taste more like meat. That type is good for people who are transitioning off meat. However, the longer you are plant-based, the less you tend to want things that don’t highlight the flavor of vegetables.
That is the philosophy of this book.
“… I’ve never been very excited about a veggie burger that tastes like meat. My perspective in this book was, and continues to be, that veggie burgers should be creative expressions of vegetables.
….
In my view, vegetables should be the star player, and veggie burgers can be a vessel for the flavor of carrots, kale, or beets when they’re fresh and delicious, and be presented in a format that’s new and unexpected.”
About half of the burgers in this book are vegan. The rest use egg as a binder but there are instructions in the front of the book for several other types of binders that could be used.
I’m not going to list the recipes that I’m interested in trying because honestly, it is almost all of them. So far I’ve made the Mushroom Barley burger. I had to substitute farro because I couldn’t find barley alone when I went to the store that day. I also made the Black Bean and Butternut Squash burger because you can’t go wrong with that combination.
For such a common vegetarian food, I’ve had a hard time making veggie burgers that taste good in the past. This is a book that I see myself using as a reference for a long time. I got this copy from NetGalley but I imagine that I will buy myself a copy when it comes out.
You had me at veggie burger. I am totally with you that I do not want my veggie burger to taste like meat. I have been vegetarian for over 30 years and do not miss the taste of meat one bit. I’ll confess that I like Trader Joe’s black bean veggie burgers, but a cookbook of recipes sounds great.