Spicy Black Bean Burgers

Delicious and very healthy Black Bean Burgers!

You will need:
1 (16 ounce) can black beans, drained and rinsed, then dried (as best you can because the mixture will adhere better if they are dry)
1/2 Green Bell Pepper, cut into pieces
1/2 onion, cut into wedges
3 cloves garlic, peeled
1 egg (or egg substitute)
1 Tbsp chili powder
1 Tbsp ground cumin
1 tsp hot sauce
1 tsp ground red pepper
1/4 cup bread crumbs
1/4 cup steal cut oats (you could use all bread crumbs or sub other oats if you have them)

Directions:

1. If grilling, preheat grill for high heat and lightly oil a sheet of aluminum foil. If baking, preheat oven to 375 degrees and lightly oil baking sheet.
2.  In a medium bowl, mash black beans with fork until thick and pasty.
3.  In a food processor, finely chop bell pepper, onion and garlic.
4.  press onion, garlic and pepper into fine strainer.  The more dry they are, the better the mixture will be.  Stir into beans.
5.  In a small bowl, stir egg, chili powder, hot sauce, cumin, red pepper.  If you are concerned about the spice level, you can add the egg to the beans last and taste for spice as you go.
6.  Stir the egg mixture into beans.  Mix in the bread crumbs and oats until mixture is sticky and holds together.  Divide into 4 patties.
7.  If grilling, place patties on foil and grill about 8 minutes on each side.  If baking, place patties on baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes on each side.

Each burger is 200 calories and has 3 g fat and 33 g of total carbs (3 g of sugar)

Panang Chicken -Reduced from 50g fat per serving to 6.7g

My boyfriend and I love, love, love the Panang chicken.  We always order it from Thai restaurants.  I wanted to make it at home and was just appalled and probably more surprised than I should have been that the recipes came out to be over 50g of fat per serving.  I set out to make it at least more healthy than what we get in the restaurants and it came out pretty freaking delicious.

You will need:

1.5 lbs  boneless skinless chicken
Panang Curry Paste
4 cups coconut milk
4 Tbs palm sugar
1 Tbs fish sauce
6 Kaffir Lime leaves (torn)
1 red Thai chili
1/4 cup fresh Thai basil leaves
1/2 cup baby corn
1 cup broccoli florets
4 dried Thai chilies

White sticky rice

Much of the fat from the restaurant recipes comes from using full-fat coconut milk.  I shopped around and I think I found one of the healthiest brands (Silk).  It definitely thins out the final product, so if you wanted to, you could thicken the sauce by whipping starch into the curry paste and coconut milk.  I had to go to the international store for the Curry paste and Lime leaves.  I ended up using fresh basil instead of thai basil.  The taste is a bit different and it cooks differently, but they are not cooked in this recipe, so the substitution was just fine.  Also, you will note that there is not amount for the curry paste.  The paste should have a recommended amount per pound of chicken on the container.  I used 4 tsp for this brand, but another recipe I saw called for 5 Tbs- what a big difference that could have made.  I will warn that the palm sugar and fish sauce dramatically change the taste of the dish.  I added both at the end little by little for the perfect taste.  I recommend tasting the sauce before and after adding each.

Here is a photo of some of the ingredients I thought would be difficult to find/recognize:

Let's get cooking!

Prepare rice as directed by package.

1.  Fry the curry paste in a wok or large pan in cooking oil until fragrant
2.  Stir in the coconut milk, chopped fresh pepper and whole dried pepper and bring to a boil
3.  Add the chicken (cubed) and cook until almost done (10-15 min)
4.  Stir in the palm sugar, fish sauce, vegetables and lime leaves.  Allow to simmer for 5 minutes.
5.  Serve over rice, garnish with basil leaves and enjoy!


Here are the approximate nutrition facts (assuming that this makes 4 servings and not including the rice)

Calories 295
Total Fat 6.7g
Saturated Fat 5 g
Cholesterol 82.5 mg
Sodium 1446 mg
Potassium 170 mg
Total Carbs 18.2 g
Fiber 3.3 g
Sugar 10.8 g
Protein 35.5 g