Spent Grain Veggie Burgers

Hi all,

I was with a guy over the weekend who asked me if I had ever tried using my spent grains in a veggie burger recipe.

He said that he was at a party a couple of weeks ago and one of the guests brought a bunch of veggie burgers made out of spent grain and he said they were unbelievable, quite possibly the best veggie burger he has ever tried.

I think that I'll try to make some based on this recipe. I'll post back my results, but please offer up any advice if you've tried it. this recipe is for 4 patties:

Ingredients
4 tablespoons hickory barbecue sauce
1 tablespoon molasses

1 (15 ounce) can black beans, drained
2.5 cups spent beer grain
2 tablespoons onions, finely chopped
1 tablespoon finely chopped canned beets
1 teaspoon beet juice
1 teaspoon chili powder
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon pickled jalapeno pepper, chopped
1 egg white, add more if needed (to bind)
2 teaspoons olive oil
4 slices monterey jack cheese (optional)

Directions
1- Stir together barbecue sauce and molasses. Set aside.
2- In a large bowl, mash beans. Stir in 3 tablespoons of the barbecue mixture (reserving remaining for brushing) and remaining ingredients -- spent grains through egg white. Form into four 6 oz patties.
3- Heat olive oil in a cast iron or non-stick skillet over medium. Grill burgers for 2 minutes on one side. Turn and brush with remaining barbecue/molasses mixture. Top with Monterey Jack and grill for another 2 minutes or until cheese is melted.
4- Serve with lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, onions and mustard on a bun which has been grilled in butter.

Sounds really good. I wonder how well they'd foodsaver and freeze. Give that a try, if you can.

I'm planning on having a regular brew daywith a bunch of friends. It would be really cool to drink the previous batch AND grill some burgers up from the grain. I hear it can be used in making bread as well, but I don't know how I'd preserve that until I was ready to bake it.

Try some chunky peanut butter in there to bind it, works really well in veggie burgers.

Oh yes, this is something I am interested in following. ooh yes....

Guys, I got hammered while brewing on Monday and left all of my spent grains in a bag in the sun all day yesterday.
I think they are probably kind of ripe by now so I'll have to try this on my next brew day. I'll post back

the peanut butter sounds like a great idea, I'll add a couple of spoonfuls.

phatuna said:

the peanut butter sounds like a great idea, I'll add a couple of spoonfuls.

Click to expand...

would you use the PB in place of, or in addition to, the eggs?

Just thinking out loud here, any idea what the nutritional value of this would be? What's actually left in those spent grains? This seems like a great idea as long as I was eating something worthwhile and not 'empty'.

Um, it's not exactly veggie if it's got eggs in it...

Homercidal said:

Um, it's not exactly veggie if it's got eggs in it...

Click to expand...

They absolutley are. They're not "vegan".

JetSmooth said:

They absolutley are. They're not "vegan".

Click to expand...

That's true, an egg is an animal by-product like milk, because they are unfertilized and would never become an animal (chicken). Eggs are in the same category as milk. Animal by-products are consumed by vegetarians.

Animal by-products are NOT consumed by vegans.

I am a carnivor, as are my parents and their parents. I find the whole vegan vegi thing kind of interesting. Especially the part about fish not being "meat".

I do however enjoy veggie burgers so I'm gonna try this out. A couple posts above had a great question regarding nutritional value and I hope someone pipes in on that. My guess is that the grain has lost a lot of value, but will be good for texture and probably bonds the other stuff together well. I think all of the other ingredients make up for the nutrition.

Really, there's an infinite number of degrees. My wife was a vegetarian for years. though she'd eat fish. She was technically an Ovo-Lacto-Pescatarian. But Vegetarian is easier to say.

Thankfully, she started eating meat when she was pregnant with our boy. Her first official craving was a corned beef sammich. :rockin:

Regardless of what you want to call these, the recipe looks fabulous and I'll be saving up some grain from my brew this weekend!

This recipe sounds great -- thanks for sharing. Between dog biscuits, bread, veggie burgers and the fact that I just planted my garden I don't think I'll have much to worry about getting rid of on my next brew day!

phatuna said:

I find the whole vegan vegi thing kind of interesting. Especially the part about fish not being "meat".

Click to expand...

Always one of my favorite arguments with the MANY Bay Area vegetarians I encounter! This recipe sounds good! I've enjoyed many fine vegetarian dishes over the years. Many of them are quite good. Unfortunately, my wife decided to go full blow vegan for a few months when we're still just dating. It was NOT a happy two months for me, but, luckily, she saw the light!

Tried the pure vegan for 16 months, just about died from iron deficiency. I have trouble keeping my levels up taking supplements and eating meat.

Anyway someone asked about the nutritional valve. Very high in protein, as brewing doesn't remove much, excellent cattle feed. AKA one-step-off vegan.

There's a brewery in Columbia, MO (Flat Branch) that makes veggie burgers out of their spent grains. They are phenomenal and, in my opinion at least, better than standard hamburgers (though not better than Booches burgers [but that's a higher class of burger]). I'll have to make this recipe and see if it compares. If this pans out I'm going to earn some major points with my vegetarian fiance.

I made a very similar recipe to Phatuna's last night and they turned out really tasty. The flavor is much better than any frozen veggie patties. I used two day old spent grains that I reserved, still moist, covered in the fridge.

2Tbs Olive oil
1tsp chili powder
1/2tsp cumin
1tsp vegan worcestershire
1tsp salt
1/2tsp black pepper

mix all the above ingredients together in a large bowl and set aside

in a separate mixing bowl combine the below ingredients.

2.5 cups spent grain.
1 15oz can mashed black beans
1Tbs peanut butter
2 diced and steamed carrots
1 stalk diced and steamed celery
1/4 cup diced red onion
1-3 Tbs of chickpea flour (to bind)

mix the grain mixture with the olive oil mixture.

create into patties and fry in 1 Tbs canola oil, over medium high heat, for 4 minutes on each side.

JMO, those look really tasty and I can't wait to try it.

jmo88 said:

I made a very similar recipe to Phatuna's last night and they turned out really tasty. The flavor is much better than any frozen veggie patties. I used two day old spent grains that I reserved, still moist, covered in the fridge.

2Tbs Olive oil
1tsp chili powder
1/2tsp cumin
1tsp vegan worcestershire
1tsp salt
1/2tsp black pepper

mix all the above ingredients together in a large bowl and set aside

in a separate mixing bowl combine the below ingredients.

2.5 cups spent grain.
1 15oz can mashed black beans
1Tbs peanut butter
2 diced and steamed carrots
1 stalk diced and steamed celery
1/4 cup diced red onion
1-3 Tbs of chickpea flour (to bind)

mix the grain mixture with the olive oil mixture.

create into patties and fry in 1 Tbs canola oil, over medium high heat, for 4 minutes on each side.

Click to expand...

Totally! Super! Awesome!

That's a really cool idea. I'll have to try it. Do you make and freeze the burgers right after you're done brewing, or do you freeze the spent grain until you're ready to use it?

The person who brought this to my attention said that they guy that makes these, typically makes a lot of burger patty's (uncooked I assume), then vacuum seals them. you might need some wax paper if you want to do this correctly.

I'll be attempting jmo's recipe tonight, as I have almost everything I need (including a bunch of spent grain left from today's brew session!)

My one question, the chickpea flour, is that needing to specifically be chickpea flour, or could I throw any dry binder in there? I was thinking cornmeal, bisquick, or just regular flour would be good, as I have those all on hand. Any thoughts from jmo (or anyone else, for that matter?)