For some time now, I have made it a point to have at least 1 meatless day per week at the Green house. To make it easy, I stuck to Meatless Monday.
Ironically, these days I almost never remember to do it for Meatless Monday. That day just comes whenever I think about it & say “hey we haven’t gone meatless yet this week.
Today is that day for this week. I was making salad for lunch & realized I need to use an eggplant we had in the fridge. Normally I do something stuffed or some sort of a soup, salad, or pasta. Today I decided to do something different & make lentil burgers sliders. {I started out making burgers, they turned into sliders so they could fit on slices of eggplant.}
Totally Vegetarian Lentil “Sliders”
These are NOT vegan or gluten-free, although you could make adjustments to fit both. There are bread crumbs in here so milk & eggs are in it. There’s lots of ways to make these but here’s my recipe.
Ingredients:
- 1 cup lentils
- 1 diced onion
- 2 minced garlic cloves
- 1 diced carrot
- 1 cup bread crumbs (toast some bread you have on hand & crumble it up using a blender, ninja or your hands)
- 1 eggplant
- Salt & pepper
- Worcestershire sauce
The Process:
Prep the eggplant:
- At least an hour ahead of time, wash & slice the eggplant into 1″ thick rings. Salt liberally & set aside. I did this while I was making salad for lunch.
- After an hour, rinse them & pat dry. Rub with olive oil & bake at 400 for about 10 minutes per side.
Make the “burger”:
- Cook the lentils according to package directions. Drain & set aside. In the same pot, add olive oil, onions, garlic, & carrots. Saute about 5 minutes until veggies are soft.
- Add the lentils back to the pot along with the bread crumbs, salt, pepper, & Worcestershire sauce to taste. {A great thing about these is that you can actually taste it to make sure seasonings are on point.} Stir it all together, smashing the lentils a bit as you go.
- Scoop the lentil mixture by the tablespoon & form into small patties. Add a olive oil to a shallow pan to coat the bottom & fry the patties about 1 minute per side.
Tip: If you’re adding cheese, put it on after you flip the patties with 1 minutes left. Put a lid (or a plate) on the pan to help the cheese melt.
Plate the sliders:
I like to let people make their own sliders. I just set out all the toppings & condiments – onions, tomatoes, lettuce, pickles, jalapeños, etc. But I will put them together for DH & our littlest. With the eggplant “buns”, the easiest is to put the pattie on 1 slice of eggplant, then pile the toppings on the other slice & let them put the 2 sides together when they eat it.
1 thing – it WILL take a lot of these to fill up hungry kids & adults. I ended up making 8 sliders for 3 people. They are delicious & they go fast. Make them your own by changing up the seasonings & toppings – a Tex-Mex version would be great with my smokey seasoning, salsa or pico, & sliced avocados. We might have to try that next week!
Until then…
