Meaty Vegan TVP Burger (Big Mac Style)

By Nandor Barta on 02/23/2023 - May contain affiliate links. Please read our disclosure.

Why is it the meatiest vegan beef burger? Because it has a chewy, ground beef-like texture (thank you TVP), and it does not taste like veggies at all. It holds together during grilling and frying, even if you make thin patties. It is juicy and moist (not mushy) on the inside, but has a crispy crust on the outside. Did I mention it is also gluten-free!

A burger with layers of green ruffled lettuce, yellow sauce, thin cheese slices, dark brown burger patty twice, sliced pickles and white chopped onion.

Want to save this post?

Enter your email below and get it sent straight to your inbox. Plus, I’ll send you budget recipes and money-saving tips every week!

If you haven’t heard about TVP (textured vegetable protein) before, you would be amazed by this ingredient. It is the best ground beef substitute ever. We use it to make the meatiest TVP meatballs, TVP taco meat, vegan lentil lasagna, or vegan moussaka.

Jump to:

Why is it the best TVP burger?
Ingredients
Instructions
Let’s build your vegan Big Mac burger!
Cooking tips
Variations
Serving ideas
More TVP recipes
More vegan burger recipes
Meaty Vegan TVP Burger (Big Mac Style)

Why is it the best TVP burger?

This is the first question you would ask, right? How would it taste like? Your answer is probably pretty specific. You want it to taste like a real beef burger.

If you want a veggie burger, you would have searched for a veggie burger recipe. But you want the meatiest vegan beef burger recipe, the one that is the closest in taste and in texture, right?

But how to do it? I found this article on Eater about what makes the perfect beef burger. Several chefs have weighed in and said:

crisp crust
juicy, moist inside
shouldn’t fall apart
thinner patty
seasoned only with salt and pepper
low fat meat (less than 20% fat content)

How do you interpret the above and make sure a vegan beef patty meets these expectations? A meatless alternative should…

have a chewy, ground beef-like texture
not taste like veggies
hold together during grilling or frying
be easy to make
need high-protein ingredients
not have fake meat substitutes

And this is exactly what you will get if you try our TVP burger recipe.

A heart shape puzzle of vegetables with a text overlay saying 7-day meal plan

FREE 7-Day Vegan Meal Plan

Subscribe to our newsletters and download it right now.

Ingredients

The main ingredient is TVP* (textured vegetable protein). What is TVP? It is actually only soy flour, no other ingredients. They add water to it to make a paste, then it is pressure cooked in a sense, then dehydrated. The chewy texture is spot on due to the TVP chunks. This is the best plant-based alternative by far. And no, you don’t need vital wheat gluten to achieve that! So what else do you need to make high-protein TVP burgers?

Onion
Garlic
Black beans
Tomato puree
Rice flour – hence it is gluten-free, but you can use all-purpose flour
Tapioca starch – or any other tapioca flour substitute
Seasoning – smoked sweet paprika, Worcestershire sauce (we like to use this vegan and gluten-free brand), dried oregano, dried basil, ground cumin, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt, and black pepper
Optional spices – you can add liquid smoke for a charred finish, or chili powder if you like things spicy.

🛒 You can find detailed measurements for all ingredients in the printable version of the recipe card at the bottom of this post.

Instructions

Turning TVP into vegan meat

Boil water in a kettle and add veggie stock or bring vegetable broth to boil.
Take a heat-resisting bowl or saucepan and soak TVP* in the hot veggie broth for 10 minutes.
When the time is up, squeeze the liquid out. As a result, you need to have moist, soft “minced meat” like in the below photo.

Precooking onion and garlic

While you wait for the TVP to get ready, peel and chop onion and garlic.
Take a frying pan, or we often use our UnoCasa cast-iron skillet, and preheat it to medium heat.
Add a dash of olive oil and the finely chopped onion and garlic.
Cook onion and garlic until tender, but opaque, yellow and not caramelized.

White frying pan with finely chopped onion.

Mixing

Add black beans, sauteed onion and garlic, canned drained black beans, tomato paste, and all spices (smoked sweet paprika, Worcestershire sauce (vegan), dried oregano, dried basil, ground cumin, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt and black pepper) to a food processor.

A food processor from above showing black beans, chopped onion, different colored spices

Blend them until you get a chunky texture.

A food processor from above showing dark brown chunky sauce

Then add soaked TVP and pulse for a couple of times.

A food processor from above showing soaked TVP from above which has a minced meat like texture

Pulse a couple of times. You don’t want to lose TVP’s ground beef texture, but you need to chop them a bit to make sure the burger patties hold together. See the consistency in the below photo.

A food processor from above showing a brown crumbly ground meat like texture.

Making TVP burger patties

Take a mixing bowl and add the chopped mixture from the food processor with the rice flour and the tapioca starch. Mix with a spatula.

Take 2-3 Tbsp of mixture and roll a ball with your hands. Then flatten the ball between your palms. We went as thin as 0.5 inches (approx. 1 cm).
Take a non-stick frying pan, or a cast-iron skillet, and heat it over low/medium heat with some oil.
Fry both sides for 5 minutes.

A white frying pan with one brown burger patty

Let’s build your vegan Big Mac burger!

Here is the best part. You can build your own meatless burger with your favorite toppings, or you can try this Big Mac-inspired combination.

We started with a toasted burger bun (cut into three horizontally).
First, we spread a generous layer of vegan Big Mac sauce on it.
Then, we added green leaf lettuce because the ruffles looked so pretty.
Next up, sliced vegan cheese.
Here comes the star of this recipe, the TVP burger patty.
Topped it with sliced raw onions.
Second part of the toasted bun.
Again vegan Big Mac Sauce, lettuce, and sliced vegan cheese.
Then we added a couple of sweet pickle slices.
Here comes another TVP burger patty and sliced raw onions on top.
Cover it with the top of the bun.

Cooking tips

Size matters – The frying time will depend on the thickness of the patty. Thicker patties will require longer cooking time, while thinner ones will be done faster and have less chance of being mushy on the inside.
Pulse, don’t blend – To maintain the texture of the patty, it’s important to only pulse the mixture in the food processor. Over-blending or mixing the ingredients will destroy that and create a too soft, puree-like consistency inside.

Variations

Pan-frying vs oven – We always opt for frying burger patties in the pan with a bit of oil. That is the only sure way to keep the patties juicy and crispy. Everything we test any recipes in the oven, the end result is always drier and less crispy. The only way I can imagine voting for the oven if for any reason you want to avoid oil completely.
Adjust the spiciness – We didn’t use hot spices, as we prefer to add fire through sauces. Add Frank’s Hot sauce, sriracha, or harissa paste when you build your TVP burger.

Serving ideas

French fries, sweet potato wedges, or roasted potatoes.
Roasted cauliflower
Grilled vegetable kabobs
Rice, quinoa, or riced sweet potatoes
For a lighter option, a light green salad, an easy vegan coleslaw, or vegan tzatziki.