INSTANT Vegan Burger & Crumble Mix | Quick & Easy Taco Crumbles & Meatballs! Vegan Pantry Staple!

Burgers, Crumbles, and Patty Mix
Makes about 3 cups of mix

The instant dinner solution: whether it’s burgers, patties, or crumbles, this is a dry mix made of
whole grains and legumes that you simply mix with hot water and seasonings for a few minutes
before using. I’ve kept the base plain so that you can dress it up as you like with your choice of
seasonings and additions, and then you will be ready to take off with your personal creative spin
to turn it into crumbles for tacos, sausages for breakfast, or burgers for the grill. I’ve made some
suggestions below for how to use it. Keep it simple, or have fun with it!

1 cup red lentils (use only red lentils, which rehydrate and cook faster than other varieties)
1 cup bulgur wheat or brown rice
½ cup pecans
½ cup dehydrated onions, or 2 tablespoons granulated garlic
½ cup nutritional yeast
¼ cup flax or chia seeds
1 tablespoon granulated garlic
2 teaspoons sea salt
2 teaspoons xanthan gum
1 teaspoon black pepper

Combine all of the ingredients in a blender and process until the everything has been reduced to
a gritty, sandy texture. Don’t over-blend to the point of it becoming smooth like flour; it should
retain some grittiness like polenta. Store the mix in a jar in the pantry for up to two months, or up
to 6 months in the refrigerator.

To Use: For each cup of mix, use about ¾ cup boiling water or stock. Put the mix in a bowl. Add
seasonings as desired – Italian herbs, chili powder, cumin, sausage spices, taco seasonings, or
follow some of the suggestions below. Pour the hot water over the mixture, and stir well. Cover
the bowl with a lid or plate, and let it sit for about 15 minutes until the liquid is wholly absorbed.
The mixture will be gooey. Now you’re ready to turn them into dinner.
For basic patties or burgers: Simply form them with your hands as desired and cook in an
oiled skillet on both sides until firm. Once fully cooked, they will hold up to re-heating on the
grill for a BBQ.
For basic crumbles: In a non-stick skillet, heat about 2 tablespoons of oil. Cook the mixture
over low heat, stirring and breaking up the mixture with a spatula for about 10 minutes until the
mixture congeals into small pieces. At first, it will seem impossible that the gooey mixture will
eventually congeal into crumbles, but they will.

Italian Meatballs
1 cup Burger, Crumble, Patty Mix
¾ cup hot water
1 ½ cups mushrooms
1 ½ cups soft breadcrumbs
3 tablespoons tomato paste
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
2 teaspoons basil
1 teaspoon rosemary
½ teaspoon marjoram
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 350°. Rehydrate the dry mix by combining with the hot water in a large
bowl. In a food processor, pulse the mushrooms until they are finely chopped but not pureed.
Add them to the bowl with the mix. Add the breadcrumbs, tomato paste, garlic, and herbs, and
mix well. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Form them into 1-inch or larger balls, and bake
for about 25 minutes until firm.

Cheesy Smoky Burgers
1 cup Burger, Crumble, and Patty Mix
¾ cup hot water
1 ½ cups mushrooms
6 ounces Smoked Vegan Mozz, such as Miyoko’s, or other smoked vegan cheese, crumbled or
grated
3 tablespoons barbecue sauce

Rehydrate the dry mix by combining with the hot water in a large bowl. In a food processor,
pulse the mushrooms until they are finely chopped but not pureed. Add them to the bowl with the
mix, and add the cheese and barbecue sauce. Mix well. Form into burgers, and cook in an oiled
skillet on both sides until browned.

Today you can go to the store and fill your bellies with anything that you crave that’s meaty whether it’s meatballs or crumbles or Burgers but sometimes you know you read the ingredients and you go I don’t really want to put that into my body well what if you could have something

That’s not only tasty but healthy and instant in your cupboard at all times today I want to show you a recipe from My Vegan meat cookbook it’s an instant burger and crumble mix that you make out of red lentils and a whole grain and you can keep stored away in your cupboard

And pull out anytime you want to have a meatball or some crumbles for your tacos or a burger to throw in the grill it’s versatile you can season it any way you like and because you made it you’ll know what goes into it so let’s get started

All right for this instant mix we’re going to start out with red lentils Bulger wheat or brown rice some pecans or walnuts some granulated garlic some dehydrated onion which I don’t have so I’m just going to substitute with a little bit more granulated garlic uh some nutritional yeast flax seeds chia

Seeds to help bind it all together a little bit of xanthan gum and some freshly ground black pepper now as far as zanth gum is concerned you may be wondering what it is it’s actually a natural byproduct a fermenting sugar with a particular bacteria called xantham monus

Campestris now I can guarantee you I’m not going to remember that okay into the blender they go I got one cup of red lentils I have one cup of bulgar wheat a little bit of farro I kind of didn’t have quite enough bulgar wheat I’ve got

Uh a few tablespoons of chia seeds you can use flax seeds instead a half a cup of walnuts or pecans a half a cup of nutritional yeast I have uh about 2 tbspoon of granulated garlic I don’t have any granulated uh onion so I’m just adding a little bit

More garlic I have the 2 teaspoons of zanthin gum and then I’m going to add about 2 te spoons of sea salt and now remember this is a basic mix without a lot of flavor so you can add whatever spices you want whether it’s for taco mix or Italian meatballs all right now

We’re going to process this until it’s Sandy and gritty now we don’t want to overprocess cuz we do want the mixture to have a little texture I’m just going to scrape down the sides another 10 seconds or so and then I think this is ready okay so I think the uh instant burger

Mix is ready to be stored in your cupboard or your refrigerator and now I’m going to show you how we can turn this into crumbles for your tacos and a burger for the grill at first I’m going to show you how to make quick crumbles for tacos or I don’t know lasagna

Whatever you want to use it for I’m going to season it sort of like tacos with whatever kind of odd uh random spices I happen to have in the coverboard I don’t have a lot right now so I’m starting out with one cup of this

Mix and to this I’m going to just give it some seasoning oh I have some Alderwood smoked sea salt so we’ll put a little bit of that in there uh and then I’m going to add some cumin I was completely out of ground cumin so I just

Bought it from bought it from the store I haven’t even bothered to transfer it to uh a jar yet I do have some chili lime seasoning blend but it seems to have expired so I’m going to add a little bit of organ oranic chili powder

As well okay so now if you want to do this Italian style you might want to add some garlic some oregano uh some basil uh some onion powder uh that kind of thing and maybe a little bit of tomato paste but we’re going to make

This sort of Taco style to the one cup of mixture I’m going to add 3/4 cup boiling water and then we have to let this sit for about 15 minutes so so that it all comes together and then we can cook it in a sauté Pan um it’s going to be very very

Gooey looking and you’re going to go there is no way that is going to turn into crumbles but it actually does believe it or not and when you think about not only the convenience of having something like this on hand but the fact that it’s made out of completely Whole

Foods ingredients instead of things that you can’t pronounce no isolated proteins I mean this is really just taking power of your food system back into your kitchen uh and taking control all right so we’re going to let that sit for about 15 minutes so as it turns out I don’t

Have a non-stick pan I highly recommend that you use a non-stick pan for cooking these crumbles but I do have a stainless steel pan now one way to make any pan almost nonstick is to make sure that you heat it up very very well before you add

Any oil to it and then add your oil and then heat it up again so I’m hoping this is going to act like a non-stick pan this is a really great brand hon it’s a stainless steel has copper I think has aluminum it’s a wonderful wonderful pan

Uh so I’m going to add my olive oil to this and this mixture is going to eventually turn into crumbles for your tacos okay okay we’re going to start breaking it up and if it sticks just scrape it and it’s all going to turn into nice little

Crumbles the first time I showed this recipe was at a veg Fest many many years ago and people were sort of in disbelief that this was actually going to turn into crumbles and sort of like magic in a way um but it’s wonderful when you can have your cupboard filled with ingredients

Like this that make dinner in a hurry that are made from whole food ingredients where you didn’t have to go out and buy something that you know you don’t want to put into your body if you haven’t yet seen you are what you eat that is a documentary on

Netflix you should definitely check out uh I got to make a feature appearance in all four episodes but it’s really about an experiment that Stanford conducted with 22 identical twins identical genes and they put one on a vegan diet the other one on a healthy omnivorous diet

For eight weeks to figure out what would happen to them what would would there be any results that could differentiate the between the two diets the most important thing that I found for me the the most uh impactful thing was that the telr that determine how youthful you are

Actually grew in those in the short 8we period and those that are eating a vegan diet in other words eating vegan can help you preserve your longevity your youthfulness um and you know as we get older that’s something that we’re all thinking about is how do I uh put off

Aging just a little bit more so so I am going to have to scrape them a little bit but that’ll just make my crumbles nice and brown so as you can see it’s becoming crumbler as I cook these and you just want to keep cooking this until they’re completely

Crumbled someone send me a non-stick pan No but this is actually working pretty well now that my pan is nice and hot they really not sticking um so you remember you can use bulgar wheat if you want to make it gluten-free you can use brown rice um

You know you could probably use barley there’s a variety of GRA whole grains that you could use in conjunction with the red lentils to uh create this the texture of these crumbles and they’re not sticking it all now so we’re just going to let that cook a little bit to firm up The crumbles are ready and I happen to have these cute little tortillas in my refrigerator so I’m going to use these and make a couple of little tacos here so let’s throw together a couple of little tacos put my burger crumbles in here I always pack my tacos way too big

I have this nice little grain from the garden called wasab and I also have some cilantro I’ve got some grated vegan cheese put that in my tacos um and of course it’s winter we don’t have any Tomatoes but I do have some Jarred salsa and I’m going to top it with some

Homemade sour cream now I’ve been playing around I have a new book coming out the vegan crary in 2025 and I have been playing around with all these different milks and curdling them and then draining them uh and that’s how I make this milk so this sour

Cream that is it’s this is made out of uh almonds and pumpkin seed milk all right so there’s my taco and I’m going to give it a taste m that’s pretty tasty I mean this is dinner or a snack in a hurry for a crowd just pull out your

Mix throw in some water and some seasonings sauté it and you got dinner I pivoted from Burgers to meatballs cuz I’m kind of in that mood of of maybe have some pasta tonight with some meatballs so I’ve got a cup of the mixture here uh I’ve got some quartered

Crein mushrooms in here I’m going to pulse them until they’re finally Chopped all righty perfeto this is exactly how I want them all right we’re going to get some garlic in there got to get some flavor in these meatballs one went onto the floor but that’s

Okay smash my garlic okay into my mix I’m going to add some margarine rosemary sage you can add Italian seasoning if you like I’m making do with what I have in my spice cabinet and now I’m going to add about 3 tbspoon of tomato paste I’m going to finally mince my

Garlic now if I had thought about it earlier I would have thrown this in with the the mushrooms and just mince it all together but I didn’t think about it ear early enough so I’m left to my my own devices here to finally mince this with a knife so we’re going to make

These pretty garlicky so get that garlic in here okay and now I’m going to add the hot water we’re going to add about 3/4 cup of hot water all right I’m going to add the mushrooms and then we’re just going to give it all a really really good stir

That’s kind of looking meaty isn’t it the mushrooms give it that the mushrooms will give it a little bit of juiciness while the the instant burger mix will give it that sort of meatiness so it’s going to be perfect and then we’re to hold it all together we’re going to add

About a cup and a half of breadcrumbs or pkle all right it’s time to form some meatballs and put them in the oven so I’m me you can do it with your hands you can also do it the uh the easy peasy method just get a small ice cream

Scooper and just the little Scoops like that um I kind of like doing them with my hands you know they they just feel I like the texture I just love being able to roll these and make them as big or as little as you like you if

You’re making meatballs for a big crowd you may just want to use a an ice cream scooper then we’re going to get these into the oven bake them off for about 25 minutes or so and then ah cover them with your favorite [Applause] sauce okay I’m one short that makes me very very unhappy so I have to borrow from a few others just so I have an even number I’m just one of those weirdos so take a little bit off of a bunch of them so I can get one more in

This row and then I’ll be happy uh let’s see which ones are the biggest maybe a little bit more off of this guy all right right yeah okay so now we’re going to get these in the oven you can bake them just like this completely oilfree or you can just

Drizzle little olive oil on them or you can fry them up later in olive oil all right let’s get this in the oven okay so these are ready now you can keep these Frozen in your refrigerator and when you’re ready you can just sauté them up again in a sauté pan with a

Little bit of olive oil to Brown them and uh and cut them through all over again and now I’m going to give them a taste uh it’s not basil season so I just have some uh peas shots pea sprouts that the leaves from peas shs to

Give it a little bit of green color let me give it a taste that’s good whether it’s eaten by itself as a poete or on on a plate of pasta that’s an honest meatball made out of whole food ingredients that you had in your cupboard and you made that all by

Yourself with this crumble mix so I hope you give this a try and I’ll see you again next time on the vegan good life with Mioko