Trying to eat healthy on a budget is HARD. I'm in the process of eliminating processed food from my family's diet, which can make it even harder in some ways.
Last week I wanted to make hamburgers for dinner, but only had one pound of ground beef. Since I'm cooking for 7, plus left overs for the hubs to take to work, we need at least 2 pounds of beef to make burgers. Rather than run to the store for another $4 pound of ground beef, I had an inspiration. Add black beans to stretch the burgers! {Can you tell I'm on a major black bean kick??}
I google searched "black bean hamburgers," and could only find vegetarian burgers made ONLY from beans. So I had to improvise.
I recently cooked dried beans for the first time. I've always used canned black beans, but in the spirit of eliminating processed foods, I decided that dried/cooked is better than canned. And cheaper. I didn't realize that the beans double in size when they're cooked, so the "per oz" price is a little misleading (in a good way). Also, I heard that bean cans have BPA in them, which health foodies say we're supposed to avoid. And I believe them.
Ok, on to the recipe.
Ingredients:
1 pound ground beef
about 2 cups black beans (or 1 can)
1t cumin (if you're a real cumin lover, as I am, go ahead and add an extra teaspoon - it's yummy!)
dash of salt
{If you use canned beans, the mixture gets pretty goopy. You'll want to add about 1/2 cup of bread crumbs. The dried beans that I cooked were much drier than the canned, and I did not need to add bread crumbs. You can sort of decide for yourself, if the patties stick together well, you don't need crumbs. If they're really crumbly and sticky, then add some. Just throw 3 slices of bread into the blender and whipped them into crumbs. Easy peasy.}
Put beans into a bowl and mash with potato masher. Mine weren't terribly mushy, there were definitely still some whole beans, and that's fine.
Add the rest of the ingredients, and mix well.
Shape into patties, and cook on the grill, a skillet, or however you usually cook hamburgers.
This was a GREAT way to stretch a pound of beef. The burgers were tasty, everyone loved them. I added a couple sprigs of cilantro to mine, because I love cilantro. I was able to make 9 patties, when a pound of beef would normally only make 4 or 5 (some of mine are smallish because I have little ones). Instead of $8 or more (just for the meat), I spent less than $5 on these burgers. This is one way that helps me afford that 100% Grass Fed Organic Beef!!!
****Fawnda here, I just wanted to add that Jeannine told me about this and I also made some meatballs with blackbeans too. And they were so good! I added black beans, mushroom and onions to a food processor until they were all chopped and combined then added that to my ground turkey (red meat and my tummy do not get along). Mine were pretty mushy so I added the bread crumbs, but they were so good and both my kids and hubby chowed them down! It is a great way to "sneak" in some beans and veggies into your meat! : ) ***
