Crunchy on the outside but moist on the inside, these soy-free and gluten free vegan sausages are light but filling.
Though it’s said to be the most important meal of the day, breakfast has always been the most difficult meal of the day for me. Most mornings, I’m just not hungry until close to lunch, and if I do eat something starchy or fruity early in the morning, it just sets me up to get hungry again before lunch.
But I realize the importance of starting my day off with breakfast, so I’ve been working at making my breakfasts more protein-rich by basing them on beans: beans over grits, beans in smoothies, and now beans in “sausage.”
Since I gave up eating much processed soy, sausage substitutes are one of the foods I’ve missed the most. My favorite breakfast sandwich was Gimme Lean sausages on Ezekiel bread with Tofu-Cashew Mayo, dill pickles, and hot sauce. It probably sounds like something I craved during pregnancy, but it was delicious.
I had a (non-pregnancy related) craving for it the other day, and decided to try making a bean version to satisfy it. And these beany babies did the trick!
Honestly, the texture isn’t at all like sausage–I would have had to add gluten to get them closer to that, and I was trying to make them safe for my gluten-free readers. They’re a little crunchy on the outside but moist on the inside, and the optional walnuts add some interesting texture.
Plain they were rather…plain. But either made into my breakfast sandwich or served with grits and Mushroom Gravy, they were tasty and satisfying.
Beany Breakfast Sausage Patties
Ingredients
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 small onion quartered
- 1 carrot cut into large chunks
- 1/2 teaspoon fennel seed
- 1 15-ounce can pinto beans drained and rinsed well
- 2 tablespoons chopped walnuts optional
- 1 tablespoon quinoa flour or other flour
- 1 tablespoon nutritional yeast
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1/2 teaspoon oregano
- 1/2 teaspoon rubbed sage
- 1/2 teaspoon dried basil
- 1/2 teaspoon thyme
- red pepper flakes to taste
- salt to taste
Instructions
- Fit a food processor with a chopping blade and turn it on. Drop the garlic into the running blades to mince. Add the onion and carrot and pulse several times to chop fine. (Or mince all by hand.)
- Heat a small non-stick skillet and add the vegetables from the food processor along with the fennel seed. Cook until carrots soften, about 4 minutes, adding water by the tablespoon if needed to prevent sticking. Scrape into a medium-sized mixing bowl.
- Put the pinto beans into the food processor and pulse until they are mostly broken down, but not at paste. Add to the vegetables in the bowl. Add all remaining ingredients to the bowl and stir well. If the mixture seems too runny, add extra flour.
- Preheat oven to 400F. Line a baking sheet with silicone mat or parchment paper.
- Using a 1/4 cup measuring cup, add bean mixture and press it in until it’s not quite to the top of the cup. Invert it over the prepared baking sheet and tap lightly, if necessary, to get the mixture to come out. Repeat for remaining bean mixture. Flatten each sausage slightly with a fork or the back of the measuring cup.
- Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until crispy on the outside but moist inside. Allow to cool for a few minutes before removing from the baking sheet and serving.
Notes
Nutritional info is approximate.
Please pin and share!
Enjoy!
orthohawk
Great timing! I just bought a 5 lb bag of pintos. For the curious, a cup and a half of cooked beans equals a 15 oz can and thus a “heaping cup” (whatever that means!) of dry will come up as the 1.5 cups. What I usually do is cook up a pound at a time and freeze them in 1.5 cup batches.
Anyway, I’ll be trying this recipe with black beans and also kidney beans as well (and maybe tweak the seasonings a bit). I’ll post updates :).
Chessie
Hot diggity dog, this sounds good! I also miss veggie sausages, and I appreciate the gluten-freedom of it. Must try this soonest. Thanks for sharing the recipe.
Pat Meadows
Thanks for making it gluten-free, Susan. It sounds good, I hope to make it soon!
Regards,
Pat Meadows
Loraine
Susan these look delicious and like everything of yours that I have made, I am sure they will be great. I am more inclined to respond though to your comments about not being hungry in the morning and that starchy foods and fruit make you hungry before lunch. You should be hungry in the morning but even if you are not, you should still eat to get your metabolism jump started and I think that you should even be happy that you are getting hungry before lunch because that means that slow metabolism is now faster. If you aren’t eating your fruit in the morning when are you having it or are you not having fruit at all. The best time to have such a sugary food like fruit is first thing in the morning to get our bodies going to have energy for the day or even right after lunch as a dessert. I am always concerned that not eating early and often during the day leaves people eating huge meals and snacking all night. We need our food while we are moving and grooving during the day and early evening and not loading up in the evening when we are not moving and then sleeping. Just my experience after experimenting with works and what doesn’t for my own diet! My rule of thumb fruit and carbs morning and afternoon and protein and (good) fats late afternoon and evening. Hope this helps 🙂
Allison
Thanks Loraine for saving me having to type all that out, it’s exactly what I was going to say!
Loraine Mazzolini
LOL! Awe – thanks Allison. Great minds think alike! We should connect on FB http://www.facebook/com/mazz10
Sandra
I never eat in the morning since I fast from 8pm to noon. And I feel great! Breakfast is overrated😇
livininparadise
OMG…I love the sound of these. I am intrigued by the use of the quinoa flour. I can’t have oats and most bean burgers call for oats. Someone said I might try quinoa flakes because they have the same qualities. I’m thinking maybe a stickiness. Also I am thinking about your comment on the alternative use of gluten. How would you use it and why? Would that be some wheat flour? to hold them together more? You said the texture wasn’t like sausage but were tasty and satisfying. That should be enough, but wondered what you thought about the sausage taste? I need to stock up on some herbs and spices. Would you use the same ones the next time you make them? I also don’t have a food processor and wonder if It would be a good investment. I’m just getting started making recipes, and I see you use the processor on a lot of them. So far I’ve been eating whole foods. Thanks so much for the recipe and the site.
Dawn
I use my food processor several times a week. It is now 20 years old. Still going strong! Kitchen-Aid brand. I love it. I think it makes eating whole foods plant based much easier. I also love my Vita Mix blender. Those two are small appliances that were well worth the price.
Susan Voisin
By gluten, I meant vital wheat gluten. It’s the protein taken from wheat, and it makes very realistic meat substitutes. I thought the sausage taste of these was pretty accurate, and I would probably keep the seasonings about the same in a gluten version.
Tina
Hello Susan. I have become an avid reader of your various recipes, so thank you very much for them.
I have a couple of questions on this one:
1) Since we don’t care about gluten-free, would you mind sharing how much vital wheat gluten you would add to this recipe, if you were going to test the gluten version?
2) Do you know whether this can be frozen, and, if so, would you freeze before or after cooking? Meaning the mixture before cooking or after? We really love our veggie sausages (last thing we haven’t been able to kick as fat-free vegans). One important aspect of them is being able to take them from the freezer to pan quickly every Sunday morning when make them, so I really am curious.
Thanks again!
Rev. Russell Elleven, DMin
Don’t know if folks know this (or want to know this) but it appears Ezekiel Breads (Food for Life) supports the Weston Price Foundation. Here’s a piece I write about the alliance:
http://www.ministerofhealth.org/why-this-vegan-will-no-longer-buy-food-for-life-products/
Peace!
Russell
Loraine Mazzolini
Good to know. Thx
Werner
I had no idea, just goes to show vigilance is important – for ALL products. Thank you so much for commenting and providing this information.
Sam
Will definitely be buying more Food for Life products for my family. Thanks so much for letting us know, Russell! This recipe looks great. Appreciate you made it gluten-free even though you didn’t need to for your family. Look forward to trying it out. Thanks.
Beth
I’ve been working on giving up soy too and these look yummy!! Thanks! I can’t wait to try them!
moonwatcher
Hi Susan,
These sound really really good. The combination of pinto beans, fennel, carrot and smoked paprika and sage make a nice sausage style base. It’s so nice adapt our old favorites to newer dietary needs. I look forward to trying these when I have some pintos. Musbrooms or mushroom gravy seem like an excellent accompaniment to the flavors. It might even be yummy to stuff large portobellos with this mixture and then bake.
xoxo
moonwatcher (Maria)
Chris
How much gluten would you add to the recipe to give them a firmer texture?
Susan Voisin
You could try replacing the quinoa flour with gluten. That would be a start, but it might take even more to make them noticeably firmer.
Herb
Hi Susan,
I find the more protein I eat the better I feel, I get more energy and feel fuller for longer. I do struggle to get enough protein as a vegan, mostly I get it from beans, nuts and quinoa.
Breakfast at the moment is porridge (oatmeal) with dark flame raisins and roasted nuts and seeds.
Mary @ Mary's Test Kitchen
Can’t wait to make these and DROWN them in gravy 😀
A
Made these yesterday, but used black eyed peas instead because I didn’t have pinto beans on hand. The flavor is really good! Went to the grocery store and got pintos, so will try this recipe again soon
Elisa
Substituting beans (especially lentils) for soy is so, so great. I don’t like to by the processed soy food either instead I make my own substitutions and I find that lentils with their really “iron-y” flavor have a similar taste to meat… Oh and of course they’re way cheaper than processed stuff 😉
steve lassoff
Looks delicious! I always loved sausages as a kid and greatly miss them for breakfast. Will try this on the weekend when I have more time.
traditionallymodernfood
Never used pinto before.. Wil try!! Thanks for the awesome recipe
Mandi
I love this! I can’t wait to try it! We eat the processed versions on special occasions because we love them so much, but we’re trying to get out of the habit. We will definitely try this recipe out!
Corrin Radd
We made these for lunch today and enjoyed them.
Tami
This recipe looks great. I cook all my burger’s on a George Forman or a panini cooker. I was wondering if these would cook well this way?
Susan
I don’t have any pinto beans at home. Do you think black beans would work or would the flavour be all wrong?
Susan Voisin
I think they’d be great.
LAB
Breakfast has always been a challenge for me too. Like you, oatmeal and other cereals and fruit tend to lead me toward eating again before lunch. I made these this morning following the recipe exactly – except for the thyme, which I was out of 😉
I gobbled two down (with a dab of tofu cashew mayo). They are delicious! I am going to pick up some dill pickles because I think these two were meant for each other.
Thank you for another awesome recipe!
Amy
Hi, could you freeze these? If so, would you do it before or after cooking them? Thanks!
Susan Voisin
I would cook them and then freeze them. They will hold together better and take less time when you take them out of the freezer.
Michelle
I tried these tonight. (looking for recipes I can make in advance for camping this weekend and thought of this with the tofu scramblers recipe I have) First, the recipe made 9 just like you said. So many times a recipe will have a quantity and it will come out to a different number, usually less. I will probably experiment with using a spice blend from a recipe I have used for years for Italian sausage. Since we switched to being vegan in February, I haven’t made this recipe since Christmas. It is in The Frugal Gourmet’s cookbook and I have a coffee grinder for the spices. I bet if I added that to the rest of the ingredients, it will be a hit. They are a bit plain like you stated, but the fennel adds a nice touch and they will pair nicely with the tofu scrambler recipe.
Justine A.
Hi Susan, I’ve been meaning to make this recipe ever since I found it and tonight I did! They were super awesome. The only adjustments I made were using black beans since they were in the pantry and I added tabasco to the mix for added kick and moisture! Super tasty! Will definitely be making them again for breakfast in the near future! Thanks for sharing <3
Lila
for those of us who are not gluten intolerant (and for me, wanting a firmer texture in this type of patty–“burgers” included–what kind of gluten would you add? wheat flour instead?
Susan Voisin
I would use vital wheat gluten instead of the flour and knead it gently until it firmed up, adding more gluten as necessary.
Ashlee
This base recipe is a staple for my household – thanks so much! 😀 This last go ’round, I used chickpeas mashed with a bit (1/4 cup-ish) of jasmine rice to help with the “stickiness.” I love gluten, so I add about 3-4 T VWG (vital wheat gluten). These are INSANELY delicious and SO easy. They come together quicker for me than the previous recipe I was using, and these are much tastier! Last note: I *always* ante up the fennel – it has that genuine flavor reminiscent of pork sausage. 😉
Lesly
Is the fennel ground or whole seeds?
Susan Voisin
I used whole seeds but you could grind them if you want.
Mary
Delish ! I made them with 1 1/2 cups of my home cooked beans rinsed and drained really well. I am not currently using any flour so I omitted it and it turned out fine. I had mine with sliced avocado and hubby had his with salsa.
This goes in my recipe file of “10’s” Thank you Susan.
AuntDebber
Spices are very reminiscent of sausage. Used red pepper flakes in mine.
Pepper + spices + pinkish pintos made the uncooked patties look like real sausage.
Paired these with fried tofu slabs (like fried eggs) on a roll.
Made a pretty good breakfast sandwich.
My vegan family loved them!
Thanks for the recipe!
Cindy
I just air fried a batch. Spray AF basked, pattied sausage really thin, cooked for 6 minutes, sprayed and then flipped, cooked another 2. Thicker ones I did for 6 minutes and then another 4 minutes but family liked thin and crispy. 400 Degrees. Easy!
Jeannette
Cindy,
Thanks for your info about using your air fryer for this recipe. I recently purchased an air fryer and am looking for recipes to use with it.
Nicola
We had these like burgers for dinner, with home made burger buns, tofu cashew mayo, ketchup, mustard, lettuce and tomato. Very good, thank you!