Chickpea and Walnut Burgers

These burgers take less than 45 minutes to put together and are full of the kind of goodness your body craves after a stressful day. They make the perfect evening meal choice as one of the ingredients is especially fantastic for improving your sleep – that ingredient is walnuts!! Walnuts naturally contain melatonin which helps control your sleep cycle. This means that eating them a few hours before bed can really help you to get to sleep. As we get older our natural melatonin levels will decrease, making it all the more important to get it from dietary sources.

Julie MontaguJulieMontagu

Ingredients:

• 1/2 of an onion
• 1 cup walnuts
• 1 cup chickpeas
• 1 cup whole-wheat flour
• 1 cup mushrooms
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1/2 cup dairy-free milk
• A dash of sea salt
• 1 tbsp basil
• Coconut oil

Instructions:

• To begin, sauté the onion and mushrooms in a large skillet with a tablespoon of the coconut oil. You can also preheat your oven to 180C at this point. Once the onions and mushrooms begin to brown, add them into your food processor with the walnuts, chickpeas, flour, garlic, milk, salt and basil and blitz. The mixture doesn’t have to be totally smooth. If you find it is too dry then add in milk as necessary or if you find it is too moist then feel free to add in more flour.
• Take a handful of the mixture at a time and make into patties before placing onto the baking tray. Place in the oven for 15 minutes before you remove, turn over and put back in for a further 15 minutes. After this time you can remove from the oven and eat however you like!