Who knew?
Well, apparently vegans all over the world. 🙂 I’ve been a vegetarian for 20-plus years; and not even during the two years that I ventured into the vegan world did I ever try the dehydrated veggie burger recipes I’d see on the Internet.
And what was I waiting for? Beats me!
Just look how delicious these look dressed up with sliced avocado spicy mustard and ketchup! When I first started making veggie burgers at home, they were no where near this colorful. I recall finding a recipe that used oat flakes to give them a chewy texture, which is delicious. But I added too much – as I often do because I prefer to cook by taste rather than measuring utensil. As a result, my veggie burgers tasted good, but had a gray, dismal look. With these you can at least get a hint of the spinach, carrot, onion, celery, pepper, sweet potato, walnuts, chia seeds and black bean combo that I chopped and mixed to make these. And the cumin, garlic powder, smoked paprika, oregano, and black pepper spiced up my apartment during their six-hour dehydrating process.
Dehydrating any food is new to me. I’m 56 years old and though I’ve tasted store-bought dehydrated bananas and apples – and been less than thrilled at their taste – the thought of dehydrating kale leaves, veggie burgers, or countless other veggie based foods never crossed my mind. I’ll admit, after all these meatless years, I’m JUST beginning to really experiment with plant-based foods. And now that I’m on this raw vegan journey, having more of a variety of foods to choose from will help me stay my path.

I learned something about dehydrating too.

At first I thought that because heat was used to dehydrate then it couldn’t possibly be considered raw anymore – a major flaw for my raw vegan food journey. But apparently as long as the food is dehydrated at 116-degrees or less, the food will still be considered raw. It just means your food will take longer to process. With these burgers, I was inspired by Eating Vibrantly’s Raw Burger Recipe which called for a 108-degree Fahrenheit  temperature and took about six hours for the dehydration process to complete.

And voile! Yummy yummy good! They are softer and not as chewy as I expected. But I can fix that by adding oat flakes to the mix. But they are still absolutely delicious! If you have a dehydrator and decide to ty these, the process is easy. Just gather up any veggies you want in your burger. Throw them all in your food processor with your desired seasonings; shape into patties, and place onto your dehydrator trays.

I think you’ll love them! 🙂

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