Cottage Cheese Is The Perfect Way To Combat Dry Veggie Burgers
There's nothing like a homemade veggie burger, especially one that's packed with flavor. Finely chopped vegetables, grains, and beans make a great foundation for these delicious patties. Yet, while eggs are often used to help bind the ingredients together, sometimes the burgers end up on the dry side. It's one of the greatest challenges in making a delicious veggie burger. So how do you avoid it?
The key is to get more moisture into your burger patties, and one ingredient that can help solve this problem may already be sitting in your refrigerator. That item is cottage cheese, which used to be dismissed as a diet food. These days, cottage cheese is experiencing a bit of a renaissance. You may have seen all of the recipes on TikTok for cottage cheese pasta sauce and even queso made from clumpy stuff. Well, this wonderful dairy product can also work wonders in your favorite veggie burger recipes.
Cottage cheese adds richness to your veggie burgers
If you're ready to build a better veggie burger, get yourself a container of cottage cheese. The choice of whether to use large or small curd cottage cheese is up to personal preference. For those who find the lumpy texture of either option off-putting, there's a really easy way to remedy that. Simply blend it for a few seconds in a food processor or blender, which will transform it into a smoother and creamier consistency.
What you want to pay attention to when using this addition in your veggie burger is the amount of fat that the cheese contains. Cottage cheese is sold with many different percentages of fat content, including some that are fat-free. For this application, skip the nonfat options; you'll get much more richness and moisture for your burgers by using a product with a higher fat content. Some recipes recommend using full-fat cottage cheese for this reason.
Other benefits of using cottage cheese in your veggie burgers
Not only will cottage cheese make your veggie burger more moist, it will add its own distinctive tang as well. This will boost the flavor of any style of veggie burger, from southwestern black bean burgers to Indian-inspired chickpea burgers. Cottage cheese also brings some nutritional benefits to every dish because it's rich in protein. Another bonus is that it's lower in fat and calories compared to some other dairy products, such as sour cream. Many kinds of cottage cheese also have live cultures that contain probiotics.
If you don't want to mix cottage cheese into an already perfectly flavored patty recipe, consider topping your burger with it instead. While it's not a melty cheese like cheddar, it will bring more moisture to the overall dish. A simple dollop of cottage cheese on top of your veggie burger may just be your new favorite condiment.