Brilliant bean burgers with pepper salsa and yogurt sauce

Beans. I know what you're thinking. Boring. Wind-inducing. Flavourless, right? Well, wrong, actually. The biggest discovery this week has been this amazing - if I may say so myself - recipe for veggie burgers, combined from a variety of sources into one big bundle of bean-heavy goodness. I can honestly say I prefer the flavours of these bean concoctions to our usual weekend staple, turkey burgers: tastier, with a more pleasant texture (not to mention ridiculously cheap), and also less fatty and less filling, meaning I can munch on more without feeling like a balloon that has been inflated well past the point of optimal fullness afterwards.  Which is kind of the point of the meat-free challenge: breaking free from the automatic assumption that to eat well, it's necessary to involve meat.

Ingredients (enough for 2 huge burgers and a big pot of salsa)

For the burgers

• 1 400g tin of kidney beans, drained and washed
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
• 1 red chilli, finely chopped
• A small bunch of coriander, stalks and leafs finely chopped
• 1 egg
• 50g of breadcrumbs
• 1/3 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp ground coriander
• 1/3 tsp ground cinnamon
• Salt, black pepper
• 2 burger buns

For the salsa

• 1 small red pepper
• 1 small yellow pepper
• 1/4 red onion
• 1/4 cucumber
• A good glug of olive oil
• 1 clove of garlic
• 1 - 2 red chillies (to taste. Fans of hot food may want to add 1/2 tsp of dried chilli flakes)
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 1 tsp paprika
• Salt, black pepper
• For the yogurt sauce
• 1 small pot of natural yogurt
• A small bunch of fresh coriander, finely chopped
• Juice of 1/2 lime
• Sprinkling of ground cumin
• Salt, black pepper

How to make

Start by roughly mashing your drained and washed beans in a large bowl with a potato masher. Add your other ingredients and mix together well. Shape the resulting 'dough' into two large burger-shaped patties and place on a baking tray or a plate to rest. A tip: rub a thin layer of olive oil on your hands to avoid excessive stickiness.

While the burgers rest, make your salsa. This couldn't be any easier. Simple chuck all the ingredients into a blender and mix together until you have a rough salsa consistency. If the results are too runny for your liking (the water in the cucumber can make things a bit sloppy), strain the salsa with a finely meshed colander.

Make the yogurt sauce by mixing all the ingredients in a bowl and whisking well.

Heat a griddle pan to medium heat. Rub some olive oil on both sides of your burgers and fry for approximately 5 minutes per side, until nice and golden.

Serve on burger buns, the insides of which have been briefly seared on the griddle pan for extra crunch. Pour some salsa on the burger, top with a bit of fresh green salad, spoon over a bit of yogurt sauce and enjoy. I promise the results will make you forget that daft old song about beans being the magical fruit/the more you eat, the more you...well, you know the rest!