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:

  1. 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.
  2. After an hour, rinse them & pat dry. Rub with olive oil & bake at 400 for about 10 minutes per side.

Make the “burger”:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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…

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