Veggie burgers?

Any veggie burger eaters here?

I'm on a hunt for good veggie burgers, either store bought or recipes. I'm not a vegetarian, but I'm trying to eat healthy sometimes and they seem to really ideal form for quick & convenient meals. I eat a bunch of frozen Indian food too and that's been pretty good from Amy's brand.

Plus, my wife's on a diet named, (mods -- I'll crypt it) "Skinny B!tc#" that is the only one that's had good results and veggie stuff is the recommended eats for her.

I've been through the usual store stuff and they're mostly dry and like cardboard. I've settled on burgers from Dr. Praeger's that are really excellent. I want some more variety, and ideally I'd like to be able to throw something together from scratch.

As far as recipes go, when my family and I were recently in Hawaii we had the very best veggie burger we've ever had. It was something like spinach & walnut and probably some cheese but I don't know all of what went into it because it was from just a little trailer and we had to race off to somewhere after a quick lunch. Plus, my 5 year old had just knocked out a front tooth while on a cave tour and I was more than a little bit distracted.

Any good brands or recipes would be great if you've got 'em!

I'm not a big veggie burger fan. Its like light beer. Whats the point?!

Instead try grilling portabello mushrooms or fry up some falafel!

Boca burgers for me, thankyouverymuch. (Not a vegetarian, but that's the brand I prefer when I eat veggie patties.)

Boca spicy chicken patties are a great non-meat "burger". One of my favorites.

Most folks find the first veggie burger they try is drier than what they are used to. Try putting them on a croissant or other bread with a higher butter content. The difference in that little amount of fat has more to do with what is called "mouth feel" than anything else but really helps make them more acceptable.

My wife loves the Boca veggie burgers. I haven't had one, but she says they're excellent. :thumbsup:

DieselTech said:

My wife loves the Boca veggie burgers. I haven't had one, but she says they're excellent. :thumbsup:

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Yup, we fed my kid those for a few years without him realizing they were veggie burgers.

It always cracked us up - him telling us how he'd never eat a veggie burger -ever- all while he was munching on one of'em Boca burgers. He's not going to outlive that one. :laughing:

I noticed tonight that Red Robin uses Boca brand for their Vegie burgers, and will substitute a Boca patty for meat in any of their sandwiches, so it must be good. I'm not a vegan or anything, but sometimes a vegie burger is just what I feel like having. Sometimes, I'll even eat the one from Burger King. The best one, ever, though, is the one they sell at a small local chain called Habit. I don't know how they do it, but the thing is amazingly delicious.

I always mean to try one of those veggie burgers some day. Not because of health concerns or anything, just because they seem like something out of one of those sci-fi movies where all the food in the future is synthetic crap processed until it vaguely resembles a food item.

Hmmm, I guess the future is here, huh?

Actually, if you're just looking to eat healthier, stop buying your burger at the grocery store, find a good butcher, and buy 98% lean ground beef. Half of what little fat is in there will come out during the cooking process and hey, it's real food.

As opposed to, you know, uhm, FAKE food.

Seriously, I honestly believe one of these days we're going to find out that all of these highly processed "healthy" foods are far worse for you than the natural version ever was. For example, I never eat margarine of any kind, only real butter. I just don't use a lot of it.

greenLED,
You are a cruel, cruel man. Enjoy tormenting your son while you can, one day he'll lean over your bed in the nursing home, smile sweetly and say "I love you Dad, guess what you just ate."

But on a similar note, I grew up on a farm and money was tight back in those days. What we had on the table often depended on my Dad could hit with his .22 and often, that was squirrel. For some reason, they felt they needed to tell me it was chicken and who was I to argue? All I knew was that it was fried and came with mashed taters and gravy.

Then I started elementary school and one day, there was a thing on my tray I had not seen before. I asked what it was and the teacher looked at me funny and said "Haven't you ever eaten chicken before?" I told her of course, I ate it all the time! Now what's this thing on my plate?

Needless to say, conversation around the dinner table was entertaining for the next couple of weeks. I didn't take my parent's word for anything!

But I still love fried squirrel.

Boca Spicy Black Bean are my new favorite. I don't think of them as a real burger replacement. I just think of them as a different burger. I like them on toasted whole wheat rolls with a slice of onion, relish and ketchup. Like 'em!

i Am vergetarian, and its not as bad as people think..

Crenshaw

Crenshaw said:

i Am vergetarian, and its not as bad as people think

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My GF used to be a vegetarian, but had to resume eating meat because she was starting to suffer from anemia.
Me, I don't want to give up my comfortable position on top of the food chain.

As for the vegetarian burgers, my gf used to cook something called seitan and stuff it everywhere. Not sure if she ate seitan burgers, but I wouldn't be surprised. *gags*

Boca Vegan here. I have to read the labels to avoid dairy ingredients so many of them are off limits or can only be eaten once in a blue moon. I zap them in the microwave and then finish them off in the skillet and they cook up nicely. Back in college my dorm's kitchen used a mix of 40% soy in the burgers and they retained their size when grilled. The dorm next door used 100% ground beef and their burgers lost about half their size and weight.

Boca's chicken patties are good too. Especially the spicy ones. Some of the analogs for cold cuts aren't that bad anymore. Not exactly like whatever they are mimicking but good.

I use them as backups when I don't have the time to make "real" food. :nana:

Ther used to be some canned stuff that I liked cooked with carmalized onions.
But after a while almost anything is better than lobster.

(I lived on a beach in Baja for a year. There was a large flat rock about waist deep 10 feet from shore, about evry other dqay there would be a big lobster under it. )

The old veggie burgers were often pretty tame, but today there is a huge selection. Anyone can find a brand they like. But the key is how you make the burger. If you slap a veggie burger on a slab of Wonder bread and give it a squirt of katsup, it won't be much to talk about.

I like to grill the veggie burger in olive oil and herbs, and stack on fresh organic lettuce and kale and spinach from the garden, along with a fresh onion and tomato, and maybe a zuke. Then toast a couple slices of heavy whole-wheat bread in the remaining olive oil and drip on a little homemade vegan sauce.

Wow, I guess Boca gets the votes! Okay, they're on the shopping list.

Buster that's a hilarious story about the "chicken". Hehe. Kinda harshing a lot on the veggies though aren't you? I have to say these veggie burgers are not all the highly processed soy things many of us had to force down when we were school. These things are mixtures of pressed veggies and rice or whatever the maker thinks is tasty. In many of them you can even recognize the vegetables in the "burger". I love beef myself, but you should try the veggie thing again. It can really taste pretty good, and you don't have that heavy feeling after eating even if you stuff yourself.

Thanks for the replies guys.

In my wife's new issue of Fitness magazine they list Boca Flame Grilled vegie burgers as being tops.

My ancestors did not fight their way to the top of the foodchain so I could eat veggieburgers. :sick2:

Nah, all kidding aside, I'll probably try them some day, just out of curiousity if nothing else. Heck, I love my veggies, I'm just used to them looking and tasting like, well, VEGGIES!

I wonder what my wife would say if I asked her to pick up some Boca Burgers on the way home from work. She'd probably think I've been taken over by the pod people.

Crenshaw said:

i Am vergetarian, and its not as bad as people think..

Crenshaw

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You hit the nail on the head as to why I can't be a Vegetarian.

If it's not as bad as folks think it is.... How bad is it??

As an almost Vegan for health reasons, It is not Sprouts and tofu and brown rice anymore. That was the all "bad" image of vegetarians.

Since I can't do dairy I miss out on growth hormones, antibiotics residues, e-coli and a plethora of other milk based nasties. I thought long about it and thought if the milk were bad, how good can the cow be? So I quit and felt better almost overnight, Not wheelchair bound to Boston Marathon better but noticeable.

I also miss out on those nasties in meat along with BSE, high cholesterol (mine is 100-125 on average) and lower kidney stress due to an overindulgence of proteins.

What do I miss out on? Being somewhat spontaneous. Like right now I am sitting in the hotel near the Liverpool airport and there are two options available. Eat a Damon's veg burger for the umpteenth time, or scrounge for a Chinese take away. Or some noodle pots like a Ramen Noodle junkie from college. :thumbsup: But it is not enough to get me to go back. I don't like the run down feeling I used to get after eating meat. Even squirrel that did taste like fried chicken, especially when my Grandmother fried it just like she did chicken.