Yesterday was National Burger Day in the UK, so in honour of this most delicious of days, I decided to make my own version of a Big Mac, veggie style!
However happy I am in my decision to go vegetarian, I do sometimes miss the fast food favourites I used to enjoy.
Fortunately, us vegetarians are so lucky these days as it is really easy to replicate the foods we loved when we ate meat, creating tasty and often identical versions using meat free products.
The recipe for this burger is really simple, I've just taken the basic ingredients for a Big Mac and bought good quality veggie burgers which have the 'meatiest' flavour I have found so far.
The key to the recipe is the Big Mac's mysterious 'secret sauce', which is actually just a variant of Thousand Island dressing.
I used Linda McCartney's 1/4 pounder burgers which are widely available in the UK, but you can use whichever burgers you like.
(I only used 1 patty per burger so it's not quite like a Big Mac, but these burgers are really big so 2 per bun would be a little much, even for me!)
Ok, so let's get Maccin'!
Ingredients (serves 4)
4 veggie burger patties (or 8 if you're making double deckers)
4 burger buns
1 white onion
3-4 medium gherkins (pickles)
3/4 cup of chopped iceberg lettuce
100g of any hard cheese of your choice (I used Red Leicester)
Thousand Island dressing
Set the oven to preheat at 200c (392F)
While that's heating, prepare the salad for the burger.
Finely dice the lettuce and white onion and slice the gherkins diagonally into thin slices like so-
Cut the cheese into thin slices around the same length as your burgers.
Put the burgers on a baking tray or foil in the middle of the oven and cook for 10 minutes.
Then remove the burgers, flip them and put the sliced cheese onto the patties, then put them back in the oven for another 5 minutes or until the cheese is nicely melted.
During this last 5 minutes, you can either lightly toast the buns in the toaster or place them in the oven with the burgers for a few minutes or until they become crispy on top.
Remove the buns and squeeze a generous squirt of Thousand Island dressing onto the bottom buns, then place the lettuce on top.
Place the burger on top of the lettuce, then add the chooped onions and gherkins.
Serve with skinny fries or onion rings.
And voila!
A yummy veggie burger to cure your Big Mac cravings.
I've served this to several meat eaters and they say it was even better than the real thing, but you'll have to try it yourself to see :)
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What was the best veggie burger you've ever had? Comment below! xx