I’ve been waiting to make a sweet potato burger for a long time. I’ve come across many recipes: in cookbooks and online, but there was never one that really caught my eye. I am no where close to being a vegetarian, but I love a good veggie burger. Quinoa and mushroom burgers are just two of my favorites, but we somehow always end up throwing bacon on top =). So although the recipe we’ve created can very easily be a vegetarian recipe, we added bacon to boost it up a notch. In the end, we topped it with avocado and a homemade aioli and served it with an asparagus salad. It was so easy and not very time consuming, so this meal is a great one to make during the week when your time is limited. We hope you find this dish as amazingly delicious as we did!
Now, we suggest you beware, this dish does have a nice little kick to it. This could be due to the fact that there is an entire can of chipotle chilies in it. We combined the chilies with 2 mashed sweet potatoes, cannellini beans, bacon, brown sugar, and more. This recipe came out so amazing that I was craving these sliders the next day. In the end, I wasn’t completely sure what should accompany them as a side dish. We really couldn’t use potatoes since the sliders are already full of starch, so I decided to make an asparagus salad I found on Pinterest. You can find the recipe here. It did not disappoint. A combination of grilled asparagus, feta, lemon, olive oil, and salt and pepper really pulled this meal together, and of course we topped the salad with crumbled bacon =). The combination was like a flavor explosion in your mouth!
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Since this dish is a tad on the spicy side, we recommend you pair it with an IPA. Any IPA will do. Well any GOOD IPA will do, but we hope by this point in our postings, you’ve come to figure out what a good IPA actually is =). This type of beer really tones down the spiciness of the dish and makes it that much more enjoyable. Enjoy!
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Ingredients
- 4 garlic cloves, roasted and minced
- 1 cup of mayo
- 1 chipotle chili, finely minced
- 2 large sweet potatoes
- 8 ounces cannellini beans, mashed
- 6 ounces tofu, very finely crumbled
- 1 can chipotle chilies
- 1/2 cup bacon, cooked and chopped into bits
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup pastry flour
- 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon allspice
- salt and pepper
- 1/2 cup crushed raw cashews
- 8 slider rolls
- 2 avocados, sliced
Instructions
- We will start with the potatoes, since this takes the longest. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees and pop your sweet potatoes in the oven to bake until a knife will go through it without much pressure. (There are of course quicker ways to bake a sweet potato. I think the best results come out of the oven, but you can heat in the microwave if you are pressed for time. We had humongous sweet potatoes, so the baking time took over an hour.)
- Meanwhile, start prepping your other ingredients. It’s a good thing to have everything ready, since there are quite a few ingredients in this recipe.
- As your potatoes continue baking, make your aioli. This is very simple. Roast your garlic (on the stovetop or in the oven) until they are aromatic and soft. Mince the garlic through a garlic press. In a small bowl, combine the minced garlic, the minced chipotle chili, and 1 cup of mayo. Mix until it just comes together and begins to turn a very light red color. Cover and refrigerate until ready for use.
- When your potatoes are finished, pull them from the oven and let cool, until they are cool enough to handle.
- Once cool, remove the skins and mash the potatoes to a pulp. In the same bowl add the beans, tofu, bacon, chilies, brown sugar, pastry flour, cinnamon, allspice, salt and pepper, and cashews.
- With a rubber spatula, fold the ingredients together. When they are combined well, check the moisture content of the mixture. If it’s still too wet, add more pastry flour until they are dense enough to create a patty without them falling apart. You don’t want them to be too dense though so that they dry out. This will take some trial and error but you will eventually get the consistency you want.
- Now you will begin making your patties. You want them to be tiny. Tiny enough to fit on a slider bun. Place them on a parchment lined serving platter and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
- Meanwhile, preheat your grill to it’s medium setting.
- Remove the patties from the fridge, and place the patties on a piece of aluminum foil. Transfer the foil to the grill and let cook 10-15 minutes on each side, until they are browning on the edges, but staying moist on the inside.
- Remove from the grill and immediately serve on slider buns. Top with avocado and homemade aioli and stick a toothpick in it to hold together!
- Serve with Grilled Asparagus Salad and enjoy!
