Stretching Ground Beef with Black Beans

Some time ago, I bought a box of those black bean, meatless hamburger patties. While not entirely impressed with their texture or dryness, the flavor wasn’t terrible. All in all, I felt no need to purchase them again. Also, frozen food in general tends to disagree with my stomach and I don’t really see black bean burgers outside of the frozen section.

But it got me thinking about the possibility of mixing black bean into ground beef to make a sort of “hybrid” hamburger. Not only would it add some new flavor and a healthy dose of fiber to my burger, but it would make my ground meat stretch a bit further.

I did some searching around online to see if this is already a thing, and I found few things out there that were in line with what I’m thinking. So I ended up doing what I often do: Wing it and see what happens.

First I had to think about how I wanted to incorporate the beans. What form should the beans be in when I mix them into the meat? As I saw it, there were three options:

Mix whole, cooked beans into the meat.

Mash up cooked beans and mix them in.

Grind dried beans into a meal and mix it in.

I didn’t necessarily want to chew on a ton of whole beans while eating my burger, so I decided against Option 1. Plus I didn’t think it would bind with the meat all that well anyway, and I don’t want some mess falling apart as it cooks or while I’m eating it.

Grinding dried beans seemed interesting to me, but I didn’t suspect it would end up like a grain meal that is somewhat “soluble” when moist. I imagined a very gritty and unpleasant texture with this method. I could have ground the dried beans and then cooked it in water, but I pictured that turning into a nasty paste that wouldn’t end up mixing well with the meat anyway. So I decided against Option 3.

So I went with Option 2. I started by simmering 1 cup of black beans for about two and a half hours. I could have soaked them overnight to cut the cooking time down, but I didn’t think of it the night before. After the beans were decently soft, I strained them and let them dry in the colander for awhile.

Now it’s time to start mashing. I don’t have a manual potato masher, so I appropriated one of my whisky glasses with a thick, flat bottom and got to squishing. After mashing as thoroughly as my patience allowed, I brought the ground beef into the picture. I will mention that the meat I had thawed and ready was ground sirloin. I figured this might not be the ideal type of ground beef, as its fat content is pretty low compared to other types, and I’m about to cut it with a lot of other non-fatty content.

But I don’t let a little thing like technical details get in the way of progress, so I went ahead with the ground sirloin. I ended up mixing in most of the 1 cup of cooked, mashed beans into 1 pound of ground beef. I played it by ear until it seemed like there was a good mix, without completely over-saturating it with bean mash. Then I sprinkled in a generous amount of McCormick’s hamburger seasoning, which is my usual go-to for burgers.

Now to form the meat into patties and get to frying. I got 4 thick patties out of my meat/bean mixture. When using just 1 pound of ground sirloin, I generally get 2 very big patties or 3 medium patties. So right here I am already able to get a good visual of how far this concoction has allowed me to stretch a pound of meat.

I think a burger cooks best in cast iron, so that’s what I went with. Because of the relatively low fat content of my patties, I heated up a good amount of olive oil in the skillet. I know that in classic burger cooking theory you aren’t supposed to turn the burger more than once or twice. I don’t abide by this at all, and I find it very conducive to even cooking and less chance of burning when turning the meat every couple of minutes. The same goes for steaks, chops, and chicken. Maybe frequent turning makes more of a difference on a grill, where you’re losing juices to the flame. But in an oiled skillet, not so much.

Because of the moisture content within the bean mash, I did get a bit of splattering and sputtering from the oil. It wasn’t bad, but it was noticeable. After cooking for a total of about 8 minutes, I checked the internal temperature with my meat thermometer. Just about 140 F. That’s “medium” for beef. I like my burgers a little more well than my steaks. It’s a texture thing, I think. So I added a slice of pepper-jack cheese on top and gave it a couple more minutes.

After removing from the pan, I put my onion roll bun into the pan to toast a bit, and got my burger accessories ready. In this case, just lettuce and mayo. In these crazy Coronavirus times, I have to take what I can get as far as fresh produce. And tomato wasn’t on the menu this day. So I assembled my burger and cut it in half to take a good look at a cross-section of my creation. I noticed that there wasn’t really any pink. I think the changed makeup of the meat, having been incorporated with beans, caused it to cook a bit differently. The temperature was “medium-well”, but there was no pink. I maybe should have aimed for “medium”. I’ll do that next time. After all, that’s what these experiments are for!

I found the texture to be not off-putting, and the taste was quite nice. I’m not going to lie: Nothing beats meat. There is nothing you are going to substitute for beef that’s going to taste as good as beef. But that’s not the point. This experiment was about balance. Can I subsidize a bit of meat in a way that is palatable, nutritious, and inexpensive? Upon my taste test, I concluded, “Yes.”

The texture was a bit more dense than an ordinary burger, surely attributed to the mashing and “over-working” of the meat from the mixing process. It had a similar texture to a well-mixed meat loaf. A fresh burger is a bit more “loose” to the bite. It was not unpleasant by any means. The black bean flavor was good, and the sirloin taste came through without being overly diluted. Next time I may add a touch more seasoning during the cooking process. It was not bland, per se, but I think I would have preferred just a notch higher on the “seasoned” chart.

Regarding the dryness and fat content, I confirmed what I’d suspected. A fattier meat would have been preferable I think. My burger wasn’t quite to the point of “dry”, but it was on the verge. A good ground chuck, or even some cheap “hamburger meat” would have almost certainly improved this creation.

In conclusion, I would definitely make this again. Well, I have to make this 3 more times because I have 3 more patties to cook! But after this. In the future. Beans are cheap and can be stored forever. Meat… not as much.

My next big “meat stretching” idea involves trying rice. I’ve had rice and beef plenty of times, but never as a burger patty. Will it work? Will be it be disgusting? I guess we shall see!

Black Bean & Beef Burger Recipe