Black Bean Cakes are a vegetarian dream packed with protein, affordable and full of flavor!
Getting a lot of protein when you’re a vegetarian isn’t always easy. Most restaurants load you down with tons of bread and pasta or offer you bland tofu or bean dishes. Often when cooking at home you rely on the same few recipes that you know your family will eat rarely making vegetarian cuisine a win. We have been making Black Bean Cakes since Kenya was just a lanky toddler. He would sit there holding on to his Black Bean Cakes with two little hands nibbling and babbling away. It still makes me so happy to think about I want to eat him up!
For this Rewind Wednesday I wanted to share one of our all time favorites. Yes, they’re a super friendly toddler recipe, but also a hit with adults. You can stack them high and layer them with plenty of guacamole, salsa, sour cream, greek yogurt, cotija cheese or other favorite toppings. These savory cakes pack not only a power punch of protein, but plenty of flavor and fun in every bite!
One of Kenya’s (many) favorite foods are black beans. He loves them with brown rice or quesadillas, or even just on their own. I wanted to come up with another fun way for him to enjoy them.
Beans are an incredible source of fiber and iron and because of their soft texture they’re perfect for forming into these little black bean cakes. Sometimes I find it hard to come up with delicious vegetarian recipes which are truly filling, but these totally fit the bill.
I love serving these to Kenya with a little guacamol-wee and sour cream for him to dip in.
Trust me, the only major problem I had making these was keeping my husband away from them. Luckily, most of the ingredients are things I keep on hand, so I quickly cooked up an extra batch so we would all have plenty to munch on at dinner and throughout the next day.
Photos by Matt Armendariz
Black Bean Cakes
Ingredients
- 1 15 ounce can black beans, rinsed and drained
- 1 ear of corn, cut off the cob (or 1 cup frozen kernels, defrosted)
- 1/2 cup cheddar cheese, shredded
- 1/4 cup cilantro, packed
- 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/4 teaspoon onion powder
- 2 tablespoons bread crumbs
- 1 large egg
- 1-2 tablespoon vegetable or canola oil
Instructions
- Place all the ingredients, except the oil, in a food processor and puree.
- Heat a large saute pan over low to medium heat with 1-2 tbsp oil.
- Place 1 Tbsp of the bean mixture in the pan. Using the back of a spoon, spread the mixture into an even circle (the size and shape of a pancake).
- Cook for 3 minutes.
- Flip on the other side and cook another 3-4 minutes or until cooked through.
- Cook remaining patties, adding about 1 tbsp oil for each batch, and move to a plate.
- Cool and serve.
- *Allow to cool, transfer to a ziploc bag, label and freeze up to 4 months. When ready, defrost in fridge for 24 hours or heat in oven for 10 minutes at 300.
Do you happen to know the nutritional information on this? Specifically proteins, carbohydrates and calories and fat count?
Thank you!!! Yes, these are so hard to get right. The update to the recipe should be made with your modifications. Still mushy, but actually workable. They also need to be much thinner than I originally thought.
I was really excited for these but could not get them to cook through. The outsides were cooked but when I cut into them they were still pureed mush inside. How thick are they suppose to be after you spread them out? I tried to make them as thin as possible, but they kept sticking to the spoon and lifting off the pan, which made it really difficult to spread out. I got a couple to sort of cook through but they were practically wafer thin, nothing like your pictures. Could you make a video the next time you cook these? The little bit I tasted had fantastic flavor, so I would really like to my little one to be able to eat them. Thanks.
Do not waste your time using this recipe. The cakes all crumbled and as a result were inedible.
I just made these and my 5 year old absolutely loved them. We’ll see what our two year old thinks. As for my wife and I, we both thought they were pretty bland, however we can see how they’d be much better with guacamole, sour cream, salsa etc.
I made some initial patties which ended up being too thin, think wafer cracker thin. They absorbed the oil and tasted like it, so don’t make that mistake.
Next I made some thicker patties the size of my 5 year old’s palm and about 1/2″-1″ thick. Those turned out the best.
Finally I made some which I baked at 375F for 14 minutes and they turned out fine, but I much preferred the end result when pan fried.
I didn’t have trouble with crumbling, but I heated the oil ahead and cooked them like a grilled cheese sandwich, until nice and browned and crispy on one side before flipping.
All in all a solid recipe for the intended budding foodies.
For everyone with consistency issues–I modified the recipe which helped significantly.
-2 eggs
-5 TBSP of breadcrumbs
– 3/4 cup of cheese
Hope this helps someone else out there experiencing crumbly patties! My toddler loves these.
Cool, great tips!
I too wanted to try these baked instead of fried.. for those of you wondering, I used cooking spray on a sheet pan and baked at 350 degrees for 12 minutes; then flipped, and baked another 6 minutes. They seem to have turned out just right!
So glad these were a hit!
I just made a variation of these without the cheese for my dairy-free toddler and they were a hit! They stuck together just fine also. I used pre-made refried black beans (a happy/organic one) and so didn’t need to use the blender – the corn looked pretty not blended up.
It is quinoa tossed with cucumbers and tomatoes 🙂
Which quinoa salad is in the picture?