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    Home » Easy Vegan Recipes » Mains

    Use your leftover okara to make a burger, man!

    2 July, 2010 by Kip 16 Comments

    OKARA SOY BURGER

    It never ceases to amaze me how few okara recipes there are available. That was a bit of an overstatement, but I mean I always just see things like "oh, I throw it in muffins" rather than concrete recipes. There are a few good recipes out there, like Fat Free Vegan's "Crab" Cakes and the repository at Ellen's Kitchen, but in general the pickings are slim.

    So here's a dead simple recipe with tasty results, a thick burger made from okara. I really want to get some more okara recipes out there since it's such a nutritious thing to waste (for those who make their own soy milk, you can probably relate with the guilt felt when throwing yet another batch in the bin). If you have any suggestions, please, by all means share them!

    Recipe Notes

    These okara burgers are more like the beefier of the frozen veggie dealios you pick up at your supermarket. No vegetables here, I'm afraid (but technically wine contains fruit, so it totally counts as healthy). Experiment with the spices all you want, but I recommend sticking with the yeast extract because it really imparts a beefy flavour. Finally, for a less firm burger try using a little more liquid in the mix.

    Steamed Okara Soy Burger

    Makes two large burgers
    • Ingredients
      • ½ cup TVP (textured vegetable protein)
      • ½ cup (approx 100g) strained okara (press as much liquid out as possible, but don't strain yourself)
      • ½ cup red wine
      • ¼ cup nutritional yeast
      • 2 teaspoon onion powder
      • 1 teaspoon yeast extract (like Natex)
      • ½ teaspoon salt
      • ½ teaspoon each thyme, oregano, cumin, and mustard powder
      • ¼ cup vital wheat gluten
    • Directions/Method
      1. In a coffee or spice mill or food processor, grind the the TVP with the spices to a fine powder. Mix thoroughly in a large bowl with all of the other ingredients except the vital wheat gluten.
      2. Incorporate the gluten flour into the mix, kneading for about two minutes. The dough will be fairly stiff, but still workable.
      3. Divide the dough into two parts, forming each into a ball. Press each one between the palms of your hands to form a rough burger shape and place each one on greaseproof or wax paper in a steamer basket.
      4. Steam the soy burgers for 30 minutes and then proceed to use as you would any other burger (e.g. grill with vegan cheese on top).

    More Mains

    • Vegan cheesy cauliflower with Chinkiang vinegar
    • Thai style vegan chicken rice (khao man gai)
    • Vegan mee gati – Thai coconut milk noodles
    • Instant pot black rice with smoked tofu and tomato coconut purée

    Reader Interactions

    I reserve the right to improve any malicious and trollish comments left below. Please do not comment about nonvegan products or activities.

    Comments

    1. TokyoVegan

      July 03, 2010 at 11:20 am

      Recently, I made the Enlightened A-Maize-ing Okara Burger recipe from Enlightened TV and had them with salsa. Here's the photo of our attempt.
      http://tweetphoto.com/30506187
      They were delicious (as were FatFreeVegan's Thai Soy burgers). Your burgers looks nice and firm, and I can't wait to try them out.

      Reply
    2. Deleoncosm

      May 27, 2011 at 12:46 am

      How or is it even possible? could this recipe be converted into gluten/casein free?  So no wheat gluten or TVP and the yeast extract? I've never heard of what is this... I know of nutritional yeast and instant yeast for making my breads... thank you as I am just begining to learn about okara etc... hopefully I might one day get to contribute to the recipes 🙂

      Reply
      • Kip

        May 27, 2011 at 7:07 am

        Yeast extract, like marmite or natex, is a spreadable paste that's a by-product of beer making. It sounds completely gross I know, but it's very popular (predominantly on toast) in lots of countries. It's not as common in the US, but it can be found at places like Whole Foods. I think British marmite is GF. I'd highly recommend checking it out; it really adds a bold rich flavour to gravies and mock meat style products.

        For TVP have you tried Bob's Red Mill brand? I'm pretty sure it's gluten free. The gluten flour is what binds this, so maybe if you added breadcrumbs and a starch (like potato or corn flour even) you could get this to work. It wouldn't be as firm, but probably would still taste okay...

        Reply
    3. William Santoro

      July 26, 2011 at 2:39 am

      I finally made these with your original recipe yesterday. Except one thing, I used vegetable broth instead of wine. I had 2 cups of okara, so I ended up quadrupling the recipe, too. Maybe my okara was too wet, but they required almost twice as much gluten flour to become stiff. In the end-using 3 steaming apparati at once--I produced 10 large patties! We fried 2 of them in a little oil and ate them with mustard. The spices/yeasty (I used Marmite) taste and consistency made them really tasty. Although I had not planned to make so many at once, it's nice to have them in the freezer for last-minute meal plans!
      Thanks again,
      William

      Reply
      • Kip

        July 26, 2011 at 6:18 am

        I really need to find a way to make okara recipes that come out across the board for everyone! It's so tricky because I've no idea how much liquid any batch might still contain. Do you make your own or do you buy it?

        Reply
        • William Santoro

          August 01, 2011 at 12:52 am

          We are producing our own as a bi-product of making soy milk at home. However, for consistency, I use dried okara in recipes that I develop for businesses. Can you suggest anything else for replacing the wine in this recipe?

          Reply
          • Kip

            August 01, 2011 at 5:57 am

            I think I might need to start writing my recipes based on dried okara too, like you said, for consistency.

            To replace the wine, try a rich veg broth with a splash of red wine vinegar in.

            Reply
      • Kip

        July 26, 2011 at 6:19 am

        PS thanks for trying it out and reporting back with your results!

        Reply
    4. GT

      December 15, 2012 at 9:02 am

      When The Lovely and I made our own tofu (back in 2009 - it's a travesty we stopped doing so), we made burgers like these from the okara... slap some fried onions, barbeque sauce (or peri-peri soy mayo), sliced tomato and lettuce on those bad boys and my hyper-carnivore brother would not know the difference.

      Know what else is THE BOMB when made from okara? Sausage rolls. Mix some of this burger-style mixture up, roll into a sausage, roll into a sheet of puff pastry, bake... proper Aussie food, mate.

      I had planned to try to find some (veggie) sausage skins and try to make actual sausages, but never did.

      As OP says, okara is a WAY underutilised product (not by-product) of tofu production. Internet commenters say this all the time, but I totally mean it when I say I'm going to convert some of our dried soybeans to tofu tomorrow (it's 8pm as I write here in Oz).

      PS this site is better than magnets (a 4chan/"breaking bad" joint reference - sorry). I've already found at least five or six recipes that will go straight into our rotation: the Thai inspirations are brilliant, and will add further ammunition to enable me to refute - with menaces if need be - any carnage-vore who claims that veggie food is 'boring'.

      PPS... I think I invented 'carnage-vore' (and 'carnage footprint' - the thing we should all try to minimise).

      Reply
      • Kip

        December 15, 2012 at 9:22 am

        PPPS this comment totally made my day. And I'm totally making the sausage rolls, perhaps for my MiL's annual Xmas eve party (where I trick people into eating vegan food every year and they act shocked as if I would bring anything else).

        PPPPS You are better than magnets.

        PPPPPS Breaking Bad is the best TV show ever.

        Reply
    5. Iris

      February 05, 2014 at 11:55 pm

      Hi!
      I've been looking for okara recipes and yours look the best 🙂
      I have a problem though, I'm from Portugal and we don't really use things
      like TVP, nutritional yeast, yeast extract and vital wheat gluten
      (seitan?). I know this is like half of the ingredients but do you think it
      would work with other ingredients? I eat eggs and cheese and I'm not 100% vegetarian.
      Thanks for your help!

      Reply
      • Kip

        February 06, 2014 at 12:08 pm

        Hi Iris,

        For this recipe all of those ingredients provide a structure that cannot be achieved otherwise. Maybe you could find a store on the internet that sells these products and ships to Portugal...

        Reply
    6. Dawn Dent

      July 09, 2020 at 8:37 am

      Would the burgers be freezable?

      Reply
      • Kip

        July 13, 2020 at 5:02 pm

        Hi Dawn,

        I haven't frozen these, but there are no ingredients that would degrade seriously from a freeze and so I'm sure freezing them would be fine.

        Reply
    7. Romy

      August 04, 2022 at 1:34 pm

      Potato starch works well as a replacement for the gluten, and the tvp can simply be left out. Double the okara instead. Miso makes a great replacement for yeast extract.

      Reply
    8. I reserve the right to improve malicious and trollish comments.

    Trackbacks

    1. Marmite Tempeh, Caramelized Onion and Seared Asparagus Sandwiches says:
      28 June, 2014 at 11:53 pm

      […] Vegemite sandwich!” You can say that anyway if you want.How did I stumble upon this product? This recipe from the Messy Vegetarian Cook for an Okara based veggie burger called for it, and since […]

      Reply

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    Name's Kip. Some things about me: vegan, Thai food enthusiast, comfortably chaotic and disorganised, information lover, Londoner, cookbook collector, clumsy AF, rarely takes a serious photo, has never been on a diet. This is not a wellness blog.

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