Mondays aren’t all bad, you know.
I mean, if you had this burger to look forward to after your first day back, it might make Monday your new favourite day of the week.
Ok, probably not. But, let me just say one thing: This burger needs to be a part of your life as soon as possible!
These Thai-inspired veggie burgers are made with a base of shredded sweet potato and chickpeas and are flavoured with fresh ginger, garlic, cilantro, basil, and a sprinkle of lime juice and toasted sesame oil. Oh my lanta! If that weren’t enough, salted, roasted chopped peanuts are stirred into the mix to give these burgers a wicked nutty crunch that’s just downright hard to resist. Even the uncooked batter is delicious in its own right!
I stacked the baked golden patties with roasted sweet potato rounds (if we’re roasting, we might as well roast the leftover sweet potato!), fresh tomato and lettuce, and then drizzled it with some of my favourite spicy peanut sauce.
Even Eric, the peanut butter hater, loves these burgers – peanut sauce and all. I don’t know whether to be happy or sad.
The peanut sauce makes a good amount, so I made a simple shredded kale salad to serve on the side. I added a shredded carrot and a few green onions into the finely chopped kale. A nice little side salad!
The sauce is good on pretty much everything from salads to wraps to roasted veggies and noodle bowls. You can also make this sauce with almond butter or even sunflower seed butter for a nut-free version (adjusting other ingredients to taste, of course). See my tips in the recipe below on how to make this recipe nut and soy free. I’ve got you covered.
Monday you never looked so good. Let’s live it up!
Featuring all new, protein-packed salads, hearty toppers, flavour boosters, and dressings you'll want to drink, my new cookbook will transform the way you think about salads. Oh, and be sure to flip to the back for a surprise dessert chapter!
Thai Sweet Potato Veggie Burgers
Yield
6-8 patties
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
Bursting with flavour, these Thai-inspired veggie burgers will make your every dream come true! The patties are made with a base of shredded sweet potato and chickpeas and are flavoured with fresh garlic, ginger, cilantro, basil, and a sprinkle of lime juice and sesame seed oil. To add some delicious crunchy texture, I've mixed in some chopped roasted and salted peanuts into the mix. These burgers are naturally gluten-free and you can make them soy-free by using coconut aminos instead of the tamari (or simply omit the tamari all together). See my note below on making this recipe nut-free. Peanut sauce is adapted from my Almond Butter Sauce.
Ingredients
For the burgers:
- 1 large sweet potato
- 1/2 cup cilantro, finely chopped
- 1/4 cup fresh basil leaves, finely chopped
- 3 large garlic cloves, minced
- 2 teaspoons finely grated ginger
- 1/2 cup roasted and salted peanuts, finely chopped
- 3/4 cup gluten-free rolled oats, processed into a coarse flour
- 1 (15-ounce) can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
- 2 tablespoons ground flax + 3 tbsp water, mixed in bowl
- 1/2 tablespoon sesame seed oil
- 1 tablespoon low-sodium tamari (or coconut aminos for soy-free option)
- 1 teaspoon fresh lime juice
- 1 teaspoon ground coriander
- 1 teaspoon fine grain sea salt, or to taste
- Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
For the peanut sauce:
- 1 garlic clove
- 6 tablespoons smooth peanut butter (or almond or sunflower seed butter)
- 2.5 tablespoons fresh lime juice
- 2 tablespoons low-sodium tamari (or coconut aminos)
- 1-2 tablespoons water, as needed
- 1/2 tablespoon pure maple syrup (or other sweetener)
- 1 teaspoon freshly grated ginger
- 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Peel the sweet potato. Using a box grater with the regular-sized grate holes, grate 1.5 cups of sweet potato. Place in large bowl. I had about 1/2 of the sweet potato leftover, so I sliced it into 1-cm rounds and placed it on the baking sheet. Drizzle with oil and toss to coat.
- In a large bowl, stir together the grated sweet potato, cilantro, basil, garlic, ginger, and chopped peanuts.
- In a food processor, add the oats and process until finely chopped. You want the texture to be like a coarse flour. Stir the oat flour into the bowl with the vegetables.
- Now add the drained chickpeas into the processor and process until finely chopped. You want the mixture to be a cross between a coarse paste and finely chopped chickpeas, but don't completely puree the chickpeas. Stir the processed chickpeas into the bowl with the vegetables and oat flour.
- In a mug, whisk together the ground flax and water. Let it sit for only 20 seconds or so, any longer and it will get too thick. Stir this flax egg into the vegetable chickpea mixture until fully combined.
- Stir in the sesame oil, tamari, lime juice, coriander, salt, and pepper all to taste.
- Shape the mixture into 6-8 patties, packing each patty tightly between your hands so it holds together well. Place each patty onto the prepared baking sheet along with the sweet potato rounds.
- Bake for 20 minutes, then gently flip the patties and potato rounds and bake for another 15-17 minutes until golden on both sides. You might have to remove the sweet potato a bit early - just keep an eye on them so they don't burn.
- While the burgers are baking, prepare the peanut sauce. Add all sauce ingredients into a food processor and process until smooth. Adjust ingredients to taste if desired. The sauce will thicken up as it sits.
- After baking, place patties on a cooling rack for 10 minutes to cool slightly. Serve with toasted buns (or lettuce or whole grain wraps), tomato slices, roasted sweet potato, lettuce, and the peanut sauce.
- The peanut sauce will store in the fridge for at least a week. The burgers can be frozen (after baking and cooling) for a couple weeks.
Tip:
- To make the burgers soy-free, use coconut aminos in place of the tamari or simply omit it all together.
- To make this recipe nut-free, omit the peanuts in the burgers and use sunflower seeds instead. For the peanut sauce, you can probably use sunflower seed butter instead of the peanut butter, but you will likely have to adjust the other ingredients to taste since its more bitter than peanut butter.
Nutrition Information
(click to expand)A big Happy Birthday goes out to my amazing mom!! XOXO
Ok, So VERY yummy. My voracious 15 year old son tried one and immediately loved them. He thought they were made with meat until he saw me eating one (as he was on his third burger) and said, “Oh, I guess these don’t have any meat in them.” The prep time was pretty long for me, so now I know what a hit these are, I’ll make a double batch next time and freeze the cooked patties. I can’t wait to make these for my carnivorous husband and for the next picnic event. Thanks for this gem!
This looks amazing! Can’t wait to try it- you are so inspiring and I am so enjoying your book and checking out the wonderful and creative recipes on your site! Thank you and continued success!
Hi Angela, Can I use something else in place of the chickpeas? For whatever reason, I have issues every time I eat chickpeas.
Was wonder if I can use quinoa? and if so ..how much?
Hi Angela, I just prepared these and can’t wait till tonight to cook them. I love Thai food although peanut sauce isn’t my favorite. Do you have any suggestions for a different sauce to serve with these veggie burgers?
Oh.My.Word. I just made your Thai burgers and they are to die for! The flavors are perfect together and the peanut sauce is delish. I ate the burger without a bun, with the peanut sauce and sliced sweet potato and I was drooling. I love your blog, it truly inspires me as I make my way eating a more plant based diet. Thank you for being amazing! I just ordered your book and I can’t wait to get it.
Is the sweet potatoe supposed to be baked before shredding???
These sound delicious! What kind of salad is that off to the side in the picture? It looks like kale! Is there a recipe for that as well? :)
These are amazing! I absolutely love this recipe as written. I usually make a batch and put the unused burgers in the freezer for a quick weeknight dinner later in the month. They freeze really well and the flavors are amazing. Slicing up and baking the remainder of the sweet potato and serving it on the burger definitely adds a little somethin’ to the flavors that I love. I highly suggest making a double batch of the peanut sauce, it’s so good that you’ll want to drink it in a glass!
I made these tonight – I happened to have 6 cups of grated sweet potato so made a quadruple recipe! The prep time took much longer than anticipated (it was somewhere between 1.5 and 2 hours), which is certainly partially caused by the increased quantity of ingredients but I think it would have taken longer than 40 minutes for a single recipe when starting with all the ingredients unprepared. I used soy sauce instead of tamari sauce as that is what we had on hand and there are no dietary restrictions. I found that I needed to add a bit extra of the wet ingredients (soy sauce, lime juice, sesame oil) to get it to my taste.
The result was delicious! I love the depth of flavour with thai food and this recipe does a great job at that balance. It was also very filling. I am looking forward to freezing the extra burgers for future meals – it will be quite a treat! Thank you for this wonderful recipe!
(As a note, I had spicy peanut sauce already open so I didn’t try that part of the recipe. I did have that spicy peanut sauce on the burger and it made a great difference.)
I made these and they are fantastic! I’ve never used flax as a binder and they held together very well. My recipe yielded 6 meal sized burgers, and they are great paired with a cucumber salad, avocado slices, and a sesame ginger dressing. The only thing I would change would be to add some jalapeno to the burgers because I love me some spice. Thanks for the great recipe!
Thanks for this great recipe. Was exactly what I was expecting. Delicious and satisfying. Was concerned the burgers wouldn’t stick together, but as explained in the recipe, pressing them firmly together worked beautifully. I used cashews in the burgers instead of peanuts and this was perfect.
Thanks again!!
Just made these today! I actually tripled the amount of sweet potato called for (grated in my food processor) and it still mixed up really well. I baked them on stoneware with some parchment paper just because I didnt’ feel like washing my stones :) Everything turned out great! I’m cooling a batch right now getting ready to freeze it.
How many calories do you estimate each patty to have (I made 6 out of your recipe)? How many calories does the peanut sauce have?
I made these yesterday. I didn’t have a box grater, so I just thinly sliced the sweet potato and then chopped it up a bit. It worked fine and it came out so amazingly fantastic! I’m really picky with veggie burgers and this one was amazing. The peanut sauce came out a bit thick so I ended up using a lot of extra water. Even my meat eating boyfriend loved this, so that how I know it’s REALLY good. Thanks so much for the fantastic recipe !
These burgers are absolutely awesome. My only recommendations would be to make a bigger batch of burgers (so there are leftovers for lunches) and to make a lot more of the peanut sauce. We served the burgers on toasted Turkish bread with the peanut sauce, tomatoes, red onion, avocado slices and mixed greens. Everyone rated them at least 9/10 – a score that is hard to beat in our household.
We only started trying to eat vegetarian (and mostly vegan) a few months ago. Before that we were rather bored with the thought of cooking. Finding this web site, and a few other vegan recipe blogs, has made us so much more inspired to cook again. It has also got my 12 year old son much more involved choosing recipes and helping in the kitchen.
Thanks so much for your fantastic site!!
Made them over the weekend. The only modification was egg (I’m not vegan). I really liked them, although I think I’ll leave out the nuts from the burgers next time. I don’t know…not so much a fan of the crunch. I also will just pan fry them next time. I never have success baking these kinds of patties. I find they dry out and don’t hold together really well. Not as healthy on the stove, but I don’t really care! I love that sear they get.
Love the peanut sauce too!
I made these yesterday for a BBQ with friends in the UK. Even the die-hard meat fanatics were making space on the plates for these! Essential with the peanut sauce which is delicious. The best moment was having the gluten intolerant said meat fanatics saying this was the best *ever* because they could eat everything!
Recipe only made six patties so recommend doubling up (thoughts I’d benefit from leftovers!). Don’t shift patties in oven until crisp as they fall apart.
Certainly staples from now on!
These are lovely! I’m going to make them for a bbq I’m going to at the weekend, and I was wondering if you thought they might stand up to being put on the grill?
Great flavor, but really crumbly. Help?
I made these for my sisters birthday dinner yesterday- they were FANTASTIC! I used some of the leftover sauce on noodles today, with some sliced spring onions scattered on top- yummy.