I'm done pretending beans are a good substitute for meat in recipes

Last week my wife made those black bean burgers from that popular blog and they fell apart in the pan after 10 minutes. We ended up eating sad bean mush on buns while she kept saying "it's basically the same as beef." No it's not, and for $1.50 a pound for ground chuck at Aldi I'd rather just have the real thing. Anyone else sick of people acting like beans are a perfect swap for everything?

2 comments

2 Comments

wendy_bell831mo ago

Hold up though, did she actually mash the beans enough or just toss them in whole and hope for the best? I've seen people skip the part where you really mash 'em down with a fork so they actually stick together, and then they wonder why it's a crumbly mess. Black beans are slippery little things and you gotta almost puree half of them before you add the breadcrumbs or egg or whatever binder you're using. And if she was using canned beans did she rinse them first? That extra starchy goo from the can works against you every time.

cameron_chen1mo ago

You're totally right about the rinsing thing @wendy_bell83, that goo from canned beans is like glue in a bad way... I learned that the hard way when my first batch of patties looked more like a bean soup than something you could pick up. These days I actually mash them in a bowl first with a potato masher, get about three quarters of them broken down, then add my binders and it holds together way better.