I love finding great new recipes for Miss H’s meals. The recipes earn extra points if it:

  • Freezes/reheats well
  • Can easily be eaten at home or packed in her lunch for the nanny (i.e. aren’t temperature-specific)
  • Don’t require a lot of unique/hard to get ingredients
  • More of it ends up in Miss H’s mouth than on the floor!

So far I have had great success with homemade black bean burger patties! One rainy Sunday I realized we didn’t have any protein in the house for Miss H – we were out of turkey meatballs and baked chicken breast, and she’d already had an egg for lunch. She was a little bit sick and I didn’t want to brave the bad weather with her to pick something up. I searched through my pantry to see what I could make for her, and saw that I had a can of black beans. I quickly searched online, found a basic recipe for black bean patties, and went with it!

These have been a hit with Miss H! She’ll eat them cold or warmed up with a little cheese melted on them. I’ve frozen them and they keep really well (eating them over a month after freezing, they never have that stale feezer taste), I almost always have the ingredients in the house…and Miss H gobbles them up! I could barely get a picture before she swiped one!

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I used this recipe from Weelicious, but with my variations below in bold.

Black Bean Patties
Recipe from Weelicious

Ingredients

  • 1 15 oz can black beans, rinsed and drained
  • 1 ear of corn, cut off the cob (or 1 cup frozen kernels, defrosted) {I used canned corn}
  • 1/2 cup cheddar cheese, shredded
  • 1/4 cup cilantro, packed {I omitted as I didn’t have any on hand}
  • 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon onion powder {I omitted as I didn’t have any on hand}
  • 2 tablespoons bread crumbs
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tablespoon oil, vegetable or canola {I omitted as I baked mine}
  • Pinch of salt

Preparation

  1. Place all the ingredients, except the oil, in a food processor and puree.
  2. Heat a large saute pan over low to medium heat with 1 tbsp oil. Place 1 Tbsp of the bean mixture in the pan. Using the back of a spoon, spread the mixture into an even circle (the size and shape of a pancake). Cook for 3 minutes. Flip on the other side and cook another 3-4 minutes or until cooked through. Cook remaining patties, adding about 1 tbsp oil for each batch, and move to a plate.
  3. My variation – baking instead of pan frying. I bake my patties on a parchment-lined baking tray in a 350-degree oven for 12 minutes, flip them over, and then bake for an additional 12 minutes.
  4. Cool and serve or cool and transfer to a ziploc bag, label and freeze up to 4 months. When ready, defrost in fridge for 24 hours or heat in oven for 10 minutes at 300.

While the recipe notes it yields about 20 patties, I only make about 9-10 from the recipe. However, I feel like the size of the patties I made are perfect for a meal for Miss H. Also, I use a spoon and my hands to place the batter on the baking sheet. It will seem very runny and have you worried that something is wrong. Just go with it. After 12 minutes, use a spatula to flip them. They will still seem very soft. But after the second 12 minute bake time, they will have firmed up quite a bit.

Enjoy!