Meals Under $3: Lentil Burgers

Okay so before we move on with the recipe, I just have to share a little excitement here from the household:

C is currently napping.  For the second day in a row.  Woohoooooo!!!

Why is this exciting, you might ask?  Well, this two-day-in-a-row stretch follows about a two week stretch with extremely sparse napping, so much so that I thought perhaps little Miss was going to give up the nap entirely.

"What?!?" I was thinking to myself.  "She just barely turned two.  This can't be the end of naps.  Please say it's not the end of naps."

But the fact that her sisters are currently making tons of noise and she is still snoring the day away leads me to believe that my other theory was the correct one: she was just getting her two year molars.  Napping was tough with both older girls around that time.  And now that they have poked through, we'll be back to nappy bliss.  I haven't checked inside her mouth to confirm this hypothesis yet... but I'm pretty sure I'm right.  Let's hope so, for the sake of Her Grumpyness and her Mama as well.

Okay, on to the recipe.

So I've made lentil burgers many times over the years from my More With Less cookbook, but that recipe usually turns out more like lentil latkes.  This is fine with me and M, and we always enjoy them, but I found that because of the extreme texture difference they were a tough sell with the girls.

So I made a few tweaks to the recipe, mostly following this one but adding a few elements from the MWL version as well.  The result was a burger that was much closer to a hamburger in both texture and appearance.  The flavor was pretty darn good too, I think.  I changed both recipes enough to merit recording it here so I can remember what I did for the next time.  Even with the addition of a few more healthy ingredients and "beefing-up" (haha) of the recipe, it is still an extremely cheap meal.  A bit more labor intensive than I like my meals to be these days, but the good news is that this one afternoon's worth of effort will yield about 14 burgers, which was enough for three nights of meals for our family.  (They're very filling!)  N was about three bites away from finishing her burger before she even thought to ask, "Is this a real hamburger?"  They're that close to the real thing.

Here goes:

Lentil Burgers

1 cup uncooked lentils

2 1/4 cup water

4 cloves garlic, peeled

1 cup onion, sliced

1 tsp dried parsley

2 T olive oil

3 cups sliced mushrooms

1 1/2 cup fresh spinach

3/4 cup chopped walnuts

1/2 cup flaxseed meal*

1 cup buckwheat flour plus 1 cup bread crumbs**

3 T balsamic vinegar

2 T dijon mustard

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

1/2 teaspoon paprika

2 teaspoons hamburger or steak seasoning (I used this)

2 eggs

*I used whole flaxseeds because I was out of flaxseed meal.

**Both original recipes called for 2 cups of breadcrumbs (instead of the buckwheat flour).  I subbed in that cup of buckwheat flour to lower the wheat and add to the protein and iron content of the burgers, and in addition I think it gave them a more black hamburger-y color.  But you could just use breadcrumbs if you don't have buckwheat flour or want to lower your cost by a few cents.

In a small saucepan, combine the water, lentils, 1/4 cup onion, 1 of the garlic cloves, and the parsley.  Bring to a boil and then simmer for 20 minutes, partially covered, until lentils are soft.  You may need to add more water if it all absorbs before the lentils are cooked.

While the lentils are simmering, heat the olive oil in a large skillet.  Saute the mushrooms and spinach with the remaining onions and garlic about 5 minutes or until mushrooms are browned.  Remove from heat and set aside.

Set up your food processor and throw in the walnuts and flaxseed or flaxseed meal.  Pulse a few times until nuts are finely chopped.  Add the cooked lentil mixture and sautéed spinach and mushrooms with the onions and garlic to the food processor.  Add the balsamic, mustard, salt & pepper, paprika, and steak seasoning.  Pulse everything together until mushrooms are almost pureed and ingredients are well combined.

(At this point, I tasted the "batter" to make sure it was well seasoned.  If it tastes too bland, add more of your steak seasoning, garlic powder, or paprika to taste.)

Transfer the food processor contents to a large bowl and add the bread crumbs/flour and eggs.  Mix together well.  Form into patties.  Heat a skillet over low to medium heat and drizzle with 1-2 T olive oil.  Fry the patties 5-6 minutes on each side or until browned and crisp.

Serve on hamburger rolls with all the fixings-- cheese, lettuce, tomato, pickles, ketchup, etc.  We also had oven fries (wedged potatoes drizzled with olive oil and roasted in the oven) on the side.

Total cost of this meal: $2.91

{This is for the burgers only... I spent an additional $1.50 for the buns.  And if you buy cheese and other fixings or sides that would obviously raise the price too.  You could lower the cost of the burgers by about $1 by using a cheaper nut than walnuts-- say, peanuts-- or eliminating the nuts altogether.  Keep in mind, however, that this yielded enough for three meals for our family, so even if you combine the cost of the burgers plus the cost of the buns ($4.41) that's still only $1.47 per meal, or an astonishing 37 cents per burger.  Beat that, McDonalds.}