We all know we could probably do with eating more veggies, sadly just 1 in 4 adults in the UK eat their 5 a day! Vegetables don’t have be boring or bland, they can be exciting, vibrant and full of flavours! You guys know how much I love my veggies so I couldn’t be happier to take part of the #itspeppertime campaign to celebrate the gorgeous peppers coming into season. Not only peppers are seriously delicious and versatile but they are also packed with skin loving vitamin C, (even more than oranges! ) iron and calcium. They work incredibly well in all sort of recipes but I particularly fell in love with this Roasted Pepper & Chickpeas Burgers which they are super satisfying and packed with flavour! They are also great to make in advance and keep in the freezer for when you have no time to cook, the full recipe is on the blog, link in my bio!

Makes 3-4 patties depending on the size.

Ingredients:

1 can of chickpeas – drained and rinsed
2 red or orange peppers – deseeded and chopped into pieces
2 spring onions – finely chopped
1/2 cup of walnuts
1/2 cup of breadcrumbs (use gluten free if you need)
A generous handful of basil leaves finely chopped
2 tablespoons of nutritional yeast
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of pepper

To serve:

Bread buns of your choice ( I have used wholemeal)
1 avocado
The juice of 1/2 lemon
Few baby spinach leaves or lettuce
1/2 large tomato
Cress or sprouts
Sauerkraut or pickle of your choice

Place the chopped peppers into a roasting tray. Drizzle with some olive oil, add salt and pepper and roast them in the oven for 20-25 minutes until soft and squishy.
In the meantime place the walnuts into a non stick pan and toast them for 3-5 minutes until slightly golden and fragrant. Remove them from the pan and roughly chop them. In the same pan add 1 teaspoon of oil and add the chopped spring onions. Cook them on a medium heat for 5 minutes until soft.
Once the peppers are cooked transfer them to a food processor and add the chickpeas, fresh basil and spring onion. Blitz for few seconds, you don’t want to over process the mixture as you still want to have quite a chunky texture. Place the burger mixture into a bowl and add the chopped walnuts, breadcrumbs, nutritional yeast, salt & pepper. Mix everything together and shape it into patties. If you find the mixture too wet add a bit more breadcrumbs.

Line a baking tray with some parchment paper and bake the burgers for about 25-30 minutes, flipping them one the other side half way through.

Once they are cooked let them cool for 5 minutes. Assemble the burger by starting adding some lettuce the base of the bun, then the burger, a thick slice of tomato, some cress or sprouts, some mashed ado and some sauerkraut. You can obviously use other condiments like mayo or ketchup.

Store any leftover burgers in the fridge for few days.