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Flavorful, nutritious fava bean burgers are great on their own, tucked into a bun or lettuce leaf with a drizzle of creamy dressing, or made into slider-sized patties for a popular party appetizer.
Why we love this recipe
Way back in 2012 during our London days, we arrived home from a trip and needed sustenance. I trolled the pantry and freezer and my memories of Yotam Ottolenghi’s Plenty and came up with the ingredients for an impromptu dinner. We enjoyed it so much that I kept it for posterity.
These burgers are:
- Equally packed with flavor and nutrients
- Great on their own, tucked into a bun or lettuce leaf, or made slider-size for a party
- Vegetarian and gluten free, with an easy vegan option
I first published this recipe here back in 2012. I’ve since updated the post for clarity and made some changes to the recipe.
What you’ll need
Here’s a glance at the ingredients you’ll need to make this recipe.
- This recipe uses fresh fava beans (sometimes called broad beans), which start showing up in markets in the late spring and last through mid- to late summer. You can sometimes find them frozen, which is fine — but don’t use dried ones in this recipe. If you can’t find favas, you could substitute canned chickpeas or white beans.
- Use a 10-ounce box of frozen chopped spinach. Let it defrost and then squeeze all the liquid out of it.
- Here’s how to cook perfect quinoa.
How to make them
Here’s what you’ll do to make a great batch of fava bean burgers with quinoa, spinach, and feta. You can see the steps in action in the video that accompanies this post, and get all the details in the recipe card below.
- Boil the fava beans and slip out of their skins. Then mash to a chunky puree in a large mixing bowl.
- Stir in the spices, cooked and drained spinach, cooked quinoa, feta, and eggs.
- Form into patties and chill for 30 minutes, then pan fry.
- Transfer to oven to cook through. That’s it!
Expert tips and FAQs
If you prefer, you can make these slider-sized and serve as an appetizer at a party. They would also work in a rounder shape as small meatless meatballs.
Sure thing. These puppies are gluten-free to begin with. For a vegan adaptation, omit the feta and replace the eggs with two flax eggs.
One flax egg is one tablespoon of ground flaxseed stirred together with three tablespoons water and left to sit for five minutes before using.
You can make these earlier in the day and serve at room temperature or reheated.
Leftovers will keep in the fridge for up to a week. Serve cold or reheat in the oven or toaster oven.
More favorite ways to love fava beans and quinoa
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Fava Bean Burgers
Ingredients
- 1 cup (120 grams) fresh or thawed frozen fava beans
- 4 medium garlic cloves, minced
- ½ teaspoon ground cumin
- ½ teaspoon ground coriander
- ¼ teaspoon ground sweet paprika
- ¼ teaspoon ground turmeric
- ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
- ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 10 ounces (284 grams) frozen chopped spinach, thawed
- 1 cup cooked quinoa
- 3 ounces (85 grams) crumbled feta
- 2 large eggs
- 2 tablespoons safflower oil for pan-frying
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F with a rack in the center.
- Fill a medium pot with two inches of water and bring to a boil. Add the fava beans and cook for eight minutes, then transfer to a bowl of ice water to cool.
- Drain beans and slip each one from its whitish skin.. Place skinned beans into a large mixing bowl and mash with a potato masher or the back of a wooden spoon until you’ve created a chunky puree.
- Add the garlic, cumin, coriander, paprika, turmeric, salt, and pepper to the bowl. Mix with a fork to combine thoroughly.
- Squeeze out as much water from the spinach as possible and add drained spinach to the bowl. Break up any clumps with the fork any stir to incorporate.
- Add the quinoa and mix well.
- Beat the eggs and add to the bowl along with the feta. Mix until all ingredients are evenly dispersed.
- Use your hands to form the mixture into six even patties. Place on a plate and refrigerate for about 30 minutes.
- Heat the safflower oil over medium-high in a 12-inch oven-safe skillet. Arrange the burgers in a single layer and cook until golden brown on the underside, and then flip and cook two minutes more.
- Transfer skillet to oven and bake for 20 minutes. Burgers will be cooked through and firmer to the touch, but still tender inside.
Notes
- Replace cooked fava beans with canned chickpeas or white beans if you like.
- You can make these earlier in the day and serve at room temperature or reheated.
- Leftovers will keep in the fridge for up to a week. Serve cold or reheat in the oven or toaster oven.
- If you prefer, you can make these slider-sized and serve as an appetizer at a party. They would also work in a rounder shape as small meatless meatballs.
- For a vegan adaptation, omit the feta and replace the eggs with two flax eggs. (One flax egg is one tablespoon of ground flaxseed stirred together with three tablespoons water and left to sit for five minutes before using.)
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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So, I baked these for 20 minutes and after squeezing the extra moisture out, they mostly stay together enough to work. I used 1 tsp nutritional yeast and 1tsp mixture of smoked sea salt and kala namak as the spices and used a combination of oats and brown rice cooked together for the grains.
I didn’t want to flip these either in a skillet or in the oven because the flax egg doesn’t keep it together all that great as it never fully thickened and kept separating. They taste really good regardless of the texture though and help me use up these fava beans I don’t like so much. Thank you for the recipe. 🙂
Thank you for following up with all those details! I’m sure it will be helpful for other readers in the future.
Can you use brown rice or other grains instead of the quinoa? I’m not really a quinoa lover, so I don’t have quinoa around but have plenty of brown rice around. Thank you.
Hi Hiroshi, definitely! I think they’d taste great and should bind together just fine with brown rice. Let me know if you try it!
Thank you. I shall try this soon with brown rice and by baking them as I don’t have an oven-safe skillet to use. Maybe I’ll try pre-cooking them with a skillet and then putting them individually on a perforated baking sheet pan to try to keep them crispy. I’ll let you know how it goes as I have tons of dried fava beans to use, so I can give this at least two different tries, one with precooking and one without. 🙂
Can these be baked instead of fried?
Hi Diana, I haven’t tried baking them. The taste would be good, but I can’t guarantee they’d hold together as well. Sorry I can’t be more helpful. If you try it, I’d love if you’d report back. Thank you!
These look so good! I am just wondering what can I use as substitute for fava beans. What other things besides legumes would you recommend? My girlfriend can’t eat legumes but she really loves quinoa!
This recipe looks fantastic! I am actually hosting a fava bean linky party as part of our Fresh Produce Tuesday series. I would love if you submitted this recipe!
-m
Hi Kt, thanks for your question. You could use steamed fresh spinach if you have a lot of it! The spinach does help to bind the cakes together. If it’s baby spinach you should be fine on the binding front. If it’s more mature spinach, you’ll want to cut it into longish, thinnish pieces for the best binding action.
Can you use fresh spinach in the recipe?