Homemade GardenBurgers Recipe
My homemade GardenBurger recipe is extremely close to the original GardenBurger, which I was powerless over as a vegetarian teenager. I don’t even know if that original burger is still made. I couldn’t find them recently when I was really craving one. So I made my own.
My dad used to make a really good sandwich with them, adding mayonnaise and fresh basil leaves along with the standard lettuce/onion/tomato. So good! And at Crown and Anchor pub in Austin, I have spent many nights (and days) drinking beer and eating their veggie burger which is a GardenBurger, deep fried so it’s super crunchy outside and also kind of tastes like French fries, which is a plus.
The basis of the GardenBurger is (was?) rice, mushrooms, and cheese. My version uses all those things, too! I have tried to make all my veggie burgers (my first and most popular veggie burger recipe; my black bean quinoa burger) without egg so that they are more easily suited for vegans. But a homemade GardenBurger recipe needs the cheese to help hold them together. If you are vegan, use a shredded “cheez” instead.
(Testing notes: Originally I tried to make these with cooked brown lentils instead of rice to get more protein, but I couldn’t get them to hold together very well. Someday I will try using half rice and half lentils and maybe get the best of both worlds? If you’re an experimenter and decide to try it, please let me know how it goes!)
Homemade GardenBurgers Recipe
- Yield: 4 1x
Ingredients
2 cups cooked short grain brown rice (1 cup raw cooked with 2 cups water for 45 minutes)
8 ounces button mushrooms
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
1 tablespoon butter
1 clove garlic, minced
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/2 cup instant or rolled oats
4 ounces cheese, grated (about 1 cup)
Instructions
Cook the rice if you don’t have any already made.
Meanwhile, clean the mushrooms with a damp cloth and finely chop the mushrooms and onion. You should get about 3 cups of minced mushrooms.
Heat the butter in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add mushrooms and onion and cover. Cook about 1 minutes or until the mushrooms have started to release their liquid. Add the garlic and salt and cook, stirring, another 2-3 minutes until the mushrooms have reduced to about half their original volume.
Transfer mixture to a large bowl and add oatmeal and rice.
Stir in the cheese. It may melt a little, that’s okay.
Let mixture cool to room temperature then shape into burgers. Chill on waxed paper to firm up.
Griddle them with some butter or oil (more makes them better!) until crisp outside and warm throughout. Make a sandwich of some sort!
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1
- Calories: 300
- Fat: 13
- Carbohydrates: 29
- Protein: 17
23 Comments
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This gardenburger recipe is the best I have made, hands down. I use baby portabella mushrooms in place of regular button mushrooms, as they add more flavor to the burgers. Vegan “cheez” and regular cheese are equally good in these burgers. Since my husband can’t eat onion, I increase the garlic to 3 cloves. I often make these in a double batch and freeze them. Then I just defrost what I need and fry in a little butter and olive oil. YUM!!
So glad you like this recipe, Rebecca! I need to make these again, too.
I made these today and they were great! I added some undercooked quinoa to the mix and then let the mix sit in the fridge all afternoon. They cooked really nicely in the pan, and the texture was perfect. I’m glad I have leftover mix so we can have them again tomorrow! Thanks!
These are so good! I miss gardenburgers (Cannot find them anywhere anymore) and don’t really care for other brands. These taste just like them. I’m on my second batch.
I’m having trouble getting them to stick together though. They end up sort of like gardenburger sloppy-joe’s if you know what I mean. I don’t mind because they’re delicious, but they’re kind of hard to cook; they totally fall apart.
Batch 2 I added an egg which helped marginally. I wonder if I’m using the wrong brand of rice or something that’s too fluffy? I’m following the recipe exactly except I don’t add garlic because I’m not crazy about it but that should not affect the texture. Anybody got any ideas? Either way I’m gonna keep making these 🙂
Oh good! I think they taste just like the real garden burgers, too. I haven’t had a problem with these totally falling apart like you’re describing, but they are a little delicate. When I mix everything together, I usually do it while the rice and mushrooms are still warm so the cheese kind of melts into glue, then cool the dough before shaping it and cook them while they’re cold from the fridge. You could try putting part of the dough through a food processor first to make more “glue” or maybe grind the oats into a coarse flour?
I made these for my girlfriend, who can’t eat meat. She’s been raised on these until they went out of stock except for at the odd restaurant or two.
I made these and they worked just fine. My girlfriend tasted them and told me they tasted exactly like she remembered. I’m so happy, thank you for this recipe!!
This happened to me as well. Not sure what to do. I thought about adding egg whites.
Haven’t made yet (planning for tomorrow) but I would think sticky rice should suffice? Did you find a solution?
I christened my new barbecue with these last year . I’m a dedicated carnivore and LOVE these burgers! Some of mine fell apart, most did not. who cares? they taste delicious and everyone loved them, They freeze perfectly! I did try using more finely shredded cheese and that did help a bit on my second and third batches!
I’m so happy to hear that! These are very popular with my friends, too.
I made them again for friends and they were a big hit, I grilled them on copper sheets on the barbecue and they held together really well. using a combination of gruyere ( which goes great with the mushrooms ) and sharp cheddar for the sweetness was perfect. Thank you Hilah
These are excellent! They are so close to the original I can’t tell the difference. Going to share this recipe with everybody I know.
Awesome! Now I want to make them again, too!
Garden burgers are still made, they are only sold at restaurant supply stores, so you have to buy 50 at a time. They are also the veggie burger at Red Robin. Can’t wait to make this recipe tomorrow!
When I went to college their cafe would serve these and I had one maybe 3-4 times a week, they were my *favorite*. i’ve been craving them for years and couldn’t find any but I made this recipe and it made my year, they taste basically identical. I was so nostalgic and happy, thank you so much!!
YES!! This garden burger reminds me of college years, too!
I’m so excited to try this recipe (especially after all of the comments) I don’t know what to do with myself! I’ve been eating Morningstar Farms Veggie Burgers for about a year thinking something wasn’t right. Then it dawned on me, the brand name was Gardenburger!! I am trying today! I’ll definitely leave a review. My BFF and I used to eat these constantly. AND they had them at TGIFs back in the day. Can’t wait!
I am giving you 5 stars for figuring this recipe out. I just found it, so I haven’t made them yet., but boy do I miss those. I even contacted corporate…..but to no avail.
I had my first Gardenburger in September of 1991 at a little drive-in called Byron’s in Honolulu. This was back when Gardenburger was more niche, having originated at Paul Wenner’s restaurant in Oregon. Definately before Gardenburger showed up in the freezer sections everywhere.
Byron’s deep fried them and stacked them with mayo, lots of onions, lots of pickles, and a bit of lettuce. I’m omnivore and love my burgers, but…..this was different.
So why do I remember this? It was THAT good!! And I’ve been chasing that original experience ever since. Something changed between the time they were distributed by Chef Wenner, probably shipping to drive-in’s and mom and pop operations from his small restaurant kitchen, to when they ended up in grocery stores. I still bought them, and ate them, but they weren’t the same, and there was nothing I could do to make them the same. And then, they just disappeared. I haven’t seen them since the “before lockdown times”….probably 2019.
I appreciate this recipe so much. It’s the first one I’ve seen that rings true, and I’ve been looking for the original since, well, the internet was a baby. I’m gonna make a batch and look forward to tasting the result! I’m hoping I can get close to that first Gardenburger I remember.
Delicious recipe! I made eight burgers today and they all stayed together. To keep them together I added a quarter cup of flour to help fill in the tiny spaces between the grains, then, used a potato masher on the mix to break it down a little. I used a 1/2 cup measuring cup to scoop a burger’s
worth of the mix, dumped it out in one clump on a nonstick mat And flattened it with the back of the measuring cup. They came out almost perfect except I would use instant oats next time. The rolled oats taste a little hard and grainy but The garden burgers were otherwise still pretty darn good!
These are great. The first round fell apart too much. The next time I made them I added powdered pea protein and flax seed, that helped them adhere into a patty better.