While working on more ways to efficiently use up all of our food, I discovered a fun method to utilize leftover vegetables and bean stews. I began making vegetable fritters, or vegetable/bean patties to use as a replacement for the highly processed and generally unhealthy vegetarian burgers from the grocery store. This alternative provides our family with a truly whole-food “burger” and assists with my zero food waste goals.

The inspiration for these creations began before Pinterest, and even prior to using the Internet to search for recipe ideas. It started with the realization that our garden was producing more zucchini than I could keep up with. In addition to giving zucchini away, I resorted to squeezing the vegetable into as many recipes as I could. Eventually I started making a sort of zucchini burger that we used in sandwiches. We also experimented with applying the same concept to leftover lentil or black bean stew with success.

If you are looking for a way to start making your own vegetarian burger, or if you are simply wanting to use up some leftovers of those vegetables that often get lost at the back of the fridge, you may enjoy the basic recipe below. There can be so many variations to making vegetable patties, the recipe often changes each time for me (I didn’t write down specific instructions until the last batch I made). Experiment with what you have and what you like, and you will eventually discover what works best for you.

Zucchini/Potato Burger

2 cups shredded zucchini
2 cups shredded potato
½ onion chopped
2-3 eggs (leftover rice and extra flour may be used in place of eggs)
½ cup flour (approximately)
salt and spices (I often use cumin, paprika, and dried parsley)

Mix ingredients. You can bake them in the oven at about 375 degrees F for 20-30 minutes (grease the pan well, I always have issues with sticking), or heat oil in a pan on the stove and use about ¼ cup per patty. Brown on both sides.