Best Black Bean Burgers

One of the better-known vegetarian foods companies makes black bean burgers one can keep in the freezer and heat at-will.  I am the kind of person who enjoys something frozen a lot more if I ate it fresh, too.  I just feel like I 'get' the food in a deeper way.  I understand its off-color jokes.  I can figure out why it seems uncomfortable in social situations.  There's also the fact that the store-bought black bean burgers have 700mg of sodium, and when you make them at home you can control how much salt you put into the mix.  I put in a 'dash.'  In my culinary travels I have decided a dash is a 1/4 teaspoon.  So, 155mg sodium.  Just sayin'.

The recipe I'm sharing is enough for 6-8 burgers, so in my house (where only two people have teeth) that was a meal and two more frozen meals.

Let's do this.

You'll need:
1lb bag dry black beans
1 cup brown rice (when uncooked it'll measure a cup)

Directions: cook 'em.

Pause.  You can totally get canned beans.  Two cans would do it.  But, like I said, we're controlling what goes into our food here and you are not the boss of what's in those cans.  So, if you do get dry black beans, just follow the directions on the package to cook them.  For me, it was something like 8 cups of cold water to soak in the night before, then a rinse, bringing them to a boil in 8 different cups of water, then simmering for 2 hours. And you cook rice the way the bag says, too.

Then mash the black beans so they'll stick together, but it's okay if they're still pretty chunky.  And mix the rice in.

Then add:
1 tbsp chili powder
1 tbsp paprika
1.5 tsp black pepper
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp cayenne
1 tsp parsley flakes
1/4 tsp salt
1/3 cup breadcrumbs
And stir all that, and then taste it.  If you want to, you can add more salt.  Twice what I suggested is still only 310mg.  In the whole recipe. Instead of 700mg in one burger.  In fact, you could use an entire teaspoon of salt and there'd still be less than 300mg of sodium per burger, which means two teaspoons is still only 580mg, and you're still winning.

Next, do whatever you want with it.  Everything is cooked, so you're just forming the burgers to either freeze or eat them.  If you're going to eat them at this point, I suggest either a frying pan with a teensy bit of olive oil (ahem, bacongreasemasonjarkitchenwindowsill) until there is a crisp shellish on them, or grilling.  Yep, grill your vegetarian burger.  WHY THE HELL NOT?

Try these things on your burger: meunster or swiss cheese, avocado (mashed with some pepper), guacamole (find your own recipe. What do you want, blood?) a fried egg, spinach, sauteed onions.

OR ALL OF THAT AT ONCE.  I mean, guac and avocado is a bit redundant, but it's your life.
It seems there are no appropriate places for process photos in this post.  As a result, I will put all the photos here, at the end!