Sun's Out, Buns Out
- Chazz Glaze
- Jun 5
- 4 min read
Your Summer Bean Burger Blueprint

(A condensed version of the following will appear in the June 6, 2025, edition of the Estes Park News.)
The last time I ate a “real burger” was the summer of '94.
Nearly 15 years before I went vegetarian for environmental and ethical reasons, I suffered a scarring three-month period in which my mom (normally the family cook) was transferred to second shift, leaving my father (inept at cooking anything that didn’t involve a grill) in charge of dinner.
Our rotating menu for those dozen or so weeks went a little something like this: hamburger, hamburger, hamburger, hamburger, pork chop, hamburger, hamburger, hamburger, steak, hamburger, hamburger, hamburger, spaghetti.
And of course the spaghetti was made with meat sauce (AKA deconstructed hamburger with a jar of Prego on top). Somehow, despite having eaten spaghetti with me countless times in my roughly five years of eating solid foods, my father forgot that I HATED meat sauce, instead preferring my noodles to be dished plain—which I would then top with ketchup and parmesan.
(Don't knock it until you've tried it. I ate my "sketti" this way until I was halfway through college, and I still crave it.)
Anyway, back to my story: When after weeks of nightly hamburgers my father put a plate of spaghetti already topped with red sauce in front of me, I burst into tears.
And that was the end of hamburgers for me.
Fast forward a couple decades. I’d gone vegan by this point and had yet to find a veggie burger I enjoyed.
That is, until I was 26 when my then-boyfriend’s friends had a cookout and one of the wives made me a black bean burger that was out of this world.
Of course, I had to ask her for the recipe.
But if you’ve ever been to any of my cooking classes, you know I have a touch too much ADD mixed with a rebel spirit that means I cannot for the life of me ever stick to a recipe.
To quote an oven mitt I saw recently: “Yeah, I followed the recipe once. It was f*cking boring.” If ever a tea towel quote were my spirit animal, that would be it.
So if you have been to one of my cooking classes, you also already know that I don’t really do recipes. Instead, I create formulas, which are kind of like recipes except if Bob Ross were in charge.
Think happy little guidelines, not strict instructions. You don’t need to measure every single thing with the precision of a rocket launch. A little more onion? That’s just a happy accident waiting to happen. Out of black beans? Well then, let’s just invite some chickpeas to the party. They’re friendly little legumes. They’ll get along just fine.
See, a bean burger formula isn’t a law—it’s a landscape. And you, my friend, are the artist. You get to decide whether today’s burger lives in the smoky paprika mountains, the cumin-kissed desert, or the Italian countryside with a basil breeze and a tomato sunset. Add some oats here, a handful of chopped greens there—whatever makes the canvas that is your skillet sing.
And if you mess something up? That’s just the universe nudging you toward a new discovery. Maybe your burgers come out a little softer than you planned. No big deal. Pop 'em in a wrap or crumble them on a salad, and suddenly you’re not dealing with a mistake—you’re creating something brand new. That’s the magic.
So go on. Mix. Match. Improvise. There are no mistakes here… just happy little bean burgers.
Infinite Possibilities Bean Burger Blueprint
Ingredients
1 ½ cups finely chopped veggies of choice
15-ounce can drained & rinsed beans of choice (or 1 ½ cups cooked beans)
½ cup cooked brown rice or bulgur or sub rolled oats
1 tablespoon spices
1 tablespoon soy sauce
Salt & pepper to taste
¼ cup potato or tapioca starch (or Ener G egg replacer) or enough to make a stiff dough
Instructions
If you’re a lazy cook like me, take whatever veggies you’re using and pulse them in a food processor until small enough. Otherwise, finely dice them by hand.
Add the beans, rice, spices, soy sauce, salt, and pepper, and pulse (or, if not using a food processor, mash by hand ) until you get a workable “dough.” Leave some chunks.
Stir in enough starch until you get a stiff dough.
Form into patties.
Lightly spray a nonstick skillet with olive oil if cooking inside or a square of aluminum foil to put on the grill.
Cook patties over medium heat until the first side starts to brown. Flip and cook until the second side is also brown.
Serve with your favorite burger toppings.
I like to make up a couple batches at a time and freeze them. Just place parchment paper between patties before you do.
Want a printable version of this formula plus a few of my favorite flavor combos to get you started? Think: Mediterranean with lemon, garlic, and parsley… a smoky chipotle black bean number… maybe even a Thai-inspired version with peanut, lime, and a whisper of heat…
Just shoot me an email at chazz@higherelevationscoaching.com and I’ll send over a little bean burger cheat sheet that'll have your taste buds high-fiving each other.
With ketchup on my fingers and rebellion in my heart,
Chazz
hamburger boycotter. self-taught cook. never thought I'd be a food blogger, but here I am crushing it with the long backstory you didn't need before just giving you the damned recipe.
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