Dry bean burgers :-( Help please!

[MissKat]

I looked at multiple recipes online and the recipe I came up follows the basics, but for the life of me I can't figure out why mine came out dry ... really dry ... cardboard dry ... lol. I'm soooooo bummed because it looked beautiful when I mixed it and when it was cooked, but OMG when I ate it, it was the worse thing I had ever made in my life! I would really appreciate input to what I did wrong and what I should change. Thanks so much! :-)

Here's my recipe:

1 1/2 cups chickpeas
1 cup white beans
4 TBSP vital wheat gluten
2 TBSP breadcrumbs
2 TBSP nutritional yeast
2 TBSP organic unsweetened soy milk
2 TBSP cornstarch + 2 TBSP purified water (as binding agent)
1 TBSP extra virgin olive oil
spinach
garlic
salt
pepper

[tickled onion]

To me it seems an awful lot of dry ingredients to only a few wet, sounds like it could do with a bit of flax egg, or some other binder, but i'm no expert on these things...

[MissKat]

To me it seems an awful lot of dry ingredients to only a few wet, sounds like it could do with a bit of flax egg, or some other binder, but i'm no expert on these things...

Oh, I'm glad you mentioned a binder. I forgot I used cornstarch & purified water as a binding agent. Will edit my post.

[Wraithling]

How were the burgers cooked - oven-baked, pan-fried, grilled? Is it possible that your oven is just hotter than the one that the recipe author uses? Or that the burgers were in a particularly hot part of the oven?

On the other hand, even with the addition of the binder, you've still only got 5 tbsp liquid in the mixture altogether, with a lot of ingredients that'll soak it up - breadcrumbs, vital wheat gluten, nooch - so it may be that the recipe just needed a bit more liquid (maybe add some of the cooking/canning liquid from the beans or chickpeas?). Then again, if they looked good before and after cooking - it may be that the author just likes their beanburgers dry as a cereal packet for some reason!

[Mymblesdaughter]

It doesn't sound like enough liquid to me either. If you make seitan with the gluten you usually use the same amount of liquid as gluten so 1 cup to 1 cup. Then you've got all the other ingredients. Beans depending how they are cooked can be variable some are actually quite soft and juice others can be dry so that could be part of it.

Also as Wraithling said how you cooked them would make a difference. I usually fry burger as I find they can be dry if you bake or grill them.

[MissKat]

Thank you Wraithling & Mymblesdaughter for replying :-)

I should have mentioned that I pan fried them. I *think* I might have fried it took long ... wanted it kind of crispy on the outside. BTW, no oil was used in the pan ... wanted to reduce calories. Will have to reduce fry time.

I was concerned w/ too much liquid and that it wouldn't hold together. I'll have to try more liquid next time. Thanks for this!

And re: the beans ... the white beans were soft and had juice but the chickpeas were kind of crunchy. I was thinking while posting that the chickpeas may have been a factor.

Next time I'll leave out the wheat gluten and just use breadcrumbs and make sure it has enough liquid. If this works, I'll add wheat gluten for the following batch. I just hate wasting ingredients and throw away food. I still have my dry burgers in the fridge ... can't bring myself to throw them away but can't bring myself to eat them either ... lol ... not sure what I'm gonna do w/ them.

I really appreciate your help! :-)