Everyone loves a good burger, which is why I've been on a mission to make the best vegan burgers around. After years of experimenting, I've created the Ultimate Vegan Seitan Burger, with Blackbean & Mushrooms. Best of all? It's TOTALLY grillable, standing up to a fierce BBQ or hotplate with no dropped bits.
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🍔Key Ingredients
What makes these seitan burgers SO good? Well, it's still a vegan burger, but with a meaty twist. The black beans & mushrooms provide deep umami flavour & a great vegan bean texture, while the seitan adds a bounce and meaty style texture that really satisfies carnivores & vegans alike. It's the perfect combination of all things burger!
- VWG (aka Vital Wheat Gluten: This is a powder made from the protein core of wheat flour. All the starch has been washed away, leaving a pure protein flour that is used to make 'Wheat meat', also known as Seitan!
- Soy Crumbles: (also known as TVP) These are the classic dried crumbles that rehydrate and create a mince meat mouth feel. Also super high in protein!
- Mushrooms: The mushrooms here provide some bulk, but mostly give a gorgeous deep meaty flavour to the burgers.
- Black Beans: I add these for flavour and texture. They're also great for sneaking a little extra fibre into everyone!
- Liquid Smoke: A little secret ingredient I like to employ to make vegan 'faux meats' taste really delicious
- Miso: For a deep umami flavour!
- And plenty of seasonings for the ultimate burger flavour!
Sadly this recipe can't be made gluten free. If you want a GF burger, head over to this recipe: Amazing Beetroot & Lentil Burgers.
👩🍳Step by Step Instructions!
For the full recipe and quantities needed, head to the recipe card below.
- Drain the black beans into your blender (You want their juice!)
2) Tip half the black beans and all the mushrooms into your food processor and whizz up.
3) You should end up with a paste like this. -
4) Now add all the seasonings, garlic cloves and the broth/liquid to your blender. ONLY up to the 700ml/3 cup mark.
5)In a large bowl, add the rest of the beans and the bean/mushroom mixture. Mash up a bit.-
6)Add in the dry soy crumbles and the VWG (Vital Wheat Gluten) to the bowl. Stir to combine.
7) Gradually add the broth mixture to the dry ingredients. Stir very well to combine.
8) Leave the burger patty mixture to sit for half an hour to absorb all the liquid into the wheat gluten and soy crumbles
9) Form the seitan patties and place on a lined baking tray.
10) Bake the seitan burger patties in the oven for 30mins until set. Your burgers are now ready for grilling!
🧅 Subtitutions
These vegan seitan burgers can't be made gluten-free, as seitan is the wheat protein that is called gluten.
They can however have other substitutions made:
- Swap the mushrooms for the same weight of beetroot. Be sure to very carefully squeeze out any liquid.
- Make these soy free:
- Instead of the soy crumbles/tvp, use crushed walnuts or oats for the texture.
- Substitute the Miso with liquid aminos or vegemite or marmite.
🌶Variations
These burgers have a great classic meaty taste, however, you can adjust the flavourings to suit your own palate:
- Make them spicy: Add chilli or chipotle paste for a spicy kick
- Add in 3-4 tablespoons of curry flavour for an Indian style burger. Serve with mango chutney and maybe an onion bhagi!
- Send these seitan burgers into kebab territory by adding in 3-4 tablespoons of schwarma spices. Great served with hummus and my tabbouleh.
🔪 Equipment
These burgers can be made by hand, however, you will find your life a whole lot easier if you have a blender and a food processor.
I love my Magimix blender and use it for all kinds of things, so be sure to check these out if you're in the market for a new one.
The Food processer I have is a Kenwood. The exact one is not available on the market anymore (which is a shame, because it is SO reliable) but you can get their newer version here.
If you don't have a food processor or blender, just chop up the mushrooms reaaaaaallly finely. And crush the black beans with a potato masher.
❓ FAQ
Store the cooked but not yet grilled burgers for up to a week in the fridge, or up to 3 months in your freezer.
Yes they do! And it is a complete protein too. These burgers serve up a huge 22g of protein per standard size burger.
Brush a little oil over the burger and get your grill really hot. Cook for a few minutes on each side until you see the grill marks and they are hot all the way through. As these burgers are pre-cooked, you don't have to worry about not cooking them through properly!
Absolutely! These burgers are pre-cooked, so just need heating through to eat. (They do taste best on a BBQ grill though!)
This recipe makes around 12-14 burgers, depending on how big you make them.
You can make mini seitan sliders too, just make the patties smaller!
Some people find seitan to taste a little 'bready'. The vinegar somehow counteracts that flavour and neutralises it. You can't taste the vinegar in the end patty.
🥗Serving Ideas
Every burger deserves great trimmings and toppings!
Here are some of my favourite ideas to top burgers. And some salads to serve alongside:
Toppings:
- Vegan cheese slices: I like Follow your Heart Smoked Gouda slices and pop them on the burger for the last minute of cooking so that they melt a little.
- Grilled onions
- This yummy zingy Vegan Slaw with no mayo!
- Juicy tomato slices
- Dill pickle slices
- and of course all the sauces and mayos that you could ever dream of!
Salads:
Top Tip
Make a batch of these burger and freeze them, ready to have to grill or BBQ whenver the sun comes out!
Place some greaseproof paper in between the burgers when freezing them, to make them easy to take out just the amount you need without defrosting all of them!
📖 Recipe
Ultimate Vegan Seitan Burger
Ingredients Note:
For accuracy, I measure all ingredients in metric as standard, then convert and test the recipe for American cup measurements etc.
(Heads up Aussie and UK readers- your measurements in cups are sometimes different, so please use metric or check you have the correct cup and spoon type!!)
Ingredients
For the Burgers
- 240 g (1½ cups) black beans ((1 tin/can))
- 250 g (2½ cups) mushrooms
- 250 g (2 cups) vital wheat gluten
- 100 g (1¼ cups) dried soya mince (also called TVP)
Seasonings
- 3 tablespoon stock or bouillon powder
- 3 tablespoon miso (you can use soy sauce if you don't have miso)
- 3 tablespoon bbq sauce (or ketchup/tomato sauce)
- 3 tablespoon vinegar (any kind. Or use pickle juice)
- 3 teaspoon oregano- dried
- 3 teaspoon dried garlic
- 1 teaspoon liquid smoke (or use 2 teaspoon smoked paprika)
Instructions
- Divide the black beans in 2 and reserve the water from the can240 g black beans
- place half the black beans & all the mushrooms in a food processor & roughly chop. Alternatively chop the mushrooms by hand & mash the beans roughly250 g mushrooms
- In a large bowl, mix together the beans, mushrooms, vital wheat gluten & dried soya mince250 g vital wheat gluten, 100 g dried soya mince
- In a blender, add the rest of the black beans & their juice + all the seasoning ingredients240 g black beans, 3 tablespoon stock or bouillon powder, 3 tablespoon bbq sauce, 3 tablespoon vinegar, 3 teaspoon oregano- dried, 3 teaspoon dried garlic, 1 teaspoon liquid smoke, 3 tablespoon miso
- Top up the blender to the 700 mls mark with water and blend until smooth (you want 700mls total liquid)3 tablespoon stock or bouillon powder
- Tip the blender contents into the large bowl of beans & mushrooms
- Using a wooden spoon, mix together all the ingredients in the bowl until combined.
- Let this rest for 45 minutes. This allows the gluten from the Vital Wheat Gluten to hydrate and start to form the burger structure.
- Once the mixture is rested, give it another mix, to be sure everything is combined. For a firmer more bouncy burger, keep mixing for 2-3 minutes. This creates the 'gluten' strands.
- Preheat your oven to 220C/Gas Mark 5
- Shape the burgers (will make 12 large burgers approx) and place on oven trays
- Bake for half hour in the oven.
- Allow your burgers to cool.
- You can now finish the burgers off. Pan fry, Grill or BBQ the burgers as desired! A little olive oil on the outside of the burgers will help create the delicious caramelisation and make them full of extra flavour!
Inga says
Hi...They look great, please can you let me know if the bugeres can be frozen?
Louise-Claire Cayzer says
Yes they freeze really well! Just freeze in singles with a little bit of greaseproof paper in between them. You can cook from frozen too (start on a low heat to ensure that the middle thaws out)
Zahava says
can you post the measurements for American readers? we don't use grams, we use cups. thanx. that would be great.
Vanessa Sturman says
Hi Zahava, many thanks for your comment, and wonderful to hear you'd like to use our recipes. We have just added the cups for this recipe (there is button at the bottom of the ingredients list so you can see cups instead of grams). We are working our way through our recipes to add cups - many of them already have this anyway. If there are specific ones you would like to make ASAP (and they don't have cups) just comment on them and we will change those for you ASAP.
Thanks
Vanessa x
Kumari says
Omg!!!! Such a delicious burger!!! I wanted to make a black bean burger w seitan and this was the first recipe to pop up and I am soooo glad. These were a hit!! Ridiculously good texture. Holds together perfectly. Grilled to perfection and enjoyed on a whole wheat bun w caramelized onions, vegan Mayo and tomatoes. Muah!!!
Louise-Claire Cayzer says
We're SO glad you liked this burger! It's our ABSOLUTE FAVE to make all summer and we get so excited when someone else likes it too! xxx
Mrk says
Tastes great, but texture is too mushy. Need some dehydration for beans and less water
Louise-Claire Cayzer says
Thank you for your feedback. We have tested this multiple times (I make a batch roughly once a month) and it shouldn't turn out mushy, but rather slightly chewy and 'meaty'.
Out of interest, did you use the weight or the US cup measurements? The weight is our original recipe and I wonder if the liquid ratio might be out in the cups?
Also worth noting that you could dehydrate the beans if you wanted to, but I personally don't like the flouryness of dehydrated beans.
MrK says
Used weight. Will try another batch with less liquid. Also noticed that sugars in bbq sauce made these burn really quickly when grilling.
Jacqueline Debono says
I've been looking for a vegan burger recipe and this sounds perfect. There's actually as much protein in these as a beef 1/4 pounder! On my to make list!
Gina says
Love how these burgers have all the umami flavor you crave from a meat burger! Delicious alternative!
Toni says
This quickly became a favorite at my house!! We will definitely make it again this weekend!
Michelle says
I made this for my vegan friend on the weekend and she loved it! Thanks for sharing your recipe!
Michelle says
Love this hearty vegan version of a burger! Perfect for summer