I have mixed feelings about veggie burgers. I appreciate that they are becoming more ubiquitous in restaurants and grocery stores. But, I don’t like the current obsession with making them taste more like meat. That type is good for people who are transitioning off meat. However, the longer you are plant-based, the less you tend to want things that don’t highlight the flavor of vegetables.

That is the philosophy of this book.

“… I’ve never been very excited about a veggie burger that tastes like meat. My perspective in this book was, and continues to be, that veggie burgers should be creative expressions of vegetables.

….

In my view, vegetables should be the star player, and veggie burgers can be a vessel for the flavor of carrots, kale, or beets when they’re fresh and delicious, and be presented in a format that’s new and unexpected.”

About half of the burgers in this book are vegan. The rest use egg as a binder but there are instructions in the front of the book for several other types of binders that could be used.

I’m not going to list the recipes that I’m interested in trying because honestly, it is almost all of them. So far I’ve made the Mushroom Barley burger. I had to substitute farro because I couldn’t find barley alone when I went to the store that day. I also made the Black Bean and Butternut Squash burger because you can’t go wrong with that combination.

For such a common vegetarian food, I’ve had a hard time making veggie burgers that taste good in the past. This is a book that I see myself using as a reference for a long time. I got this copy from NetGalley but I imagine that I will buy myself a copy when it comes out.