Portabella Mushroom Veggie Burgers

This recipe is by far the most ingenious combination of vegetables with functionality and taste.  A regular 'ole Veggie Burger made new and exciting by the replacement of 2 buns for 2 grilled Portabella Mushroom Caps!! Can you believe it? It seems so obvious--Portabella Mushrooms look exactly like Burger Buns and you just switch the latter for the former.  Why haven't I thought about this before?! It's ingenious and delicious, clearly delicious.

For those of you who think that all mushrooms are the same, or worse, that all mushrooms are the simple white ones we buy in bulk at Walmart or another grocery store, it's pertinent that I tell you they're not.  Rather, mushrooms come in a variety of sporous veggies instead of just the regular white table mushroom.  They can be flavorful, rich, creamy (yes, creamy, like the mighty portabella), or smokey, earthy, and the like (see the rare expensive mushrooms one finds in specialty stores that are not nearly as attractive as a table mushroom.  However, these mushrooms make for excellent soups and flavors in sauces).  Better yet, they can be fungal bodies like the expensive French truffel (retailing anywhere from $80+ individually!). 

This recipe capitalizes on the creamier, highly flavorful portabella that when mixed with a simple veggie burger, some olive oil and thyme can create a serious taste sensation.

Portabella Mushroom Burgers
This recipe originated with an episode of the Biggest Loser with chef Curtis Stone.  Stone created these veggie delights as a way of cutting carbs and replacing their absence with flavorful nutrients.  If the original recipe from Stone is followed exactly (you can find it here), one will only be eating 280 calories per serving! Can you believe that? 280 calories? Good Golly.  You could eat 2 of these and bottom out with the amount of calories in 1 regular meat-lovin' burger.  Seesh.

My recipe is a little different.  Although it does not call for the sauce Stone makes (a delicious creamy chive sauce worth trying with a direct link above), it calls for a more intuitive preparation--make a veggie burger the way you always would make it and replace the buns with portabella mushrooms.  

Burger & Construction Ingredients
* 2 oversized Portabella Mushroom Caps, washed, with stems removed
* 1 tablespoon olive oil
* 1 veggie burger (I use the Morningstar Farms blackbean veggie burger, about 110-130 calories)
* tomatoes, optional
* onions, optional
* red peppers, optional
* spinach, optional
* 1 1/2 teaspoons Thyme
* Salt & pepper, to taste
* Stone's burger sauce, found here

1.) Cook veggie burger over medium heat in skillet (about 2-3 minutes on both sides).
2.) While veggie burger is cooking, wash, remove stems, and baste Portabella Mushroom Caps with the 1 tablespoon of olive oil.  Pepper to taste and grill on an isolated grilling unit.  For example, grill until juicy on a Foreman grill, or over a firey outdoor grill.  You'll know the mushroom is close to being done when it has flattened by about 1/4 and is juicy all over; they may even be mushroom juices to show the caps preparedness.
3.) Remove Portabellas from heat and onto a plate.  Slide the veggie burger in between the two caps much like you would a burger; sprinkle with Thyme.  From here, you can fix the burger exactly as you would any burger.  I prefer a combination of tomatoes, spinach, onions, red peppers etc.; as for sauces, feel free to whip up Stone's burger sauce--a combination of chives and natural yogurt.  Or, a tablespoon or two of mustard does the trick nicely too.  Enjoy!


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