First, let me show you what I bought yesterday:

A new food processor!!! When I was dreaming up this maple apple tempeh burger recipe and thinking about how many things I needed to grate and chop, I realized today would be the perfect day to pick up a full sized food processor. This one was on sale at Target for $44.99 and on amazon for the same price (with free shipping) and WOW it’s amazing.

While we’re out here on my balcony, let me show you something else.

My new herb garden!! I got it over the weekend and its loaded with different kinds of herbs all in one tub. It was $18 for the whole thing, which is a lot cheaper than buying the herbs individually and since there’s just one thing I have to water, I’m keeping my fingers crossed I can keep this one alive…

Ok, sorry for the tangent. Back to the task at hand.

Maple Apple Tempeh Burgers

Entire recipe has 20pts+. If divided into 6 patties, 3 pts+ each. Printable version here.

This recipe came to be when I was trying to figure out a fun new way to make tempeh. When I thought about how well it grinds up for my tempeh taco recipe, I realized these crumbles would make a perfect base for a burger. I googled and was surprised that there were very few tempeh burger recipes out there, so I knew it was my duty to come up with a delicious version to share with you guys.

Maple syrup and tempeh go very well together because tempeh is naturally a little bitter, so the sweetness of the syrup is a perfect contrast for the tempeh. This recipe has just enough maple syrup and apple to mask the bitterness of the tempeh, but not so much that it overpowers the burger with sweetness. The recipe itself is super simple, and the directions could be:

1. Mix everything together.
2. Cook in a pan.

But I’ll draw it out for you as a favor.

To start, here is what you need:

• 1 block tempeh, crumbled
• 1 small apple, grated
• 1/4 of a red onion, chopped
• 1 egg
• fresh sage, chopped (or dried)
• 1 tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
• 1/4 cup panko bread crumbs
• 1 tbsp maple syrup

First up, grate your tempeh. My food processor made it go from this:

to this:

In under 10 seconds. No joke.

It also went from this:

To this:

in 5 seconds. CRAZY. Ok, I’ll stop.

Combine all your ingredients in one bowl.

Grated tempeh, bread crumbs, grated apple, egg, chopped red onion, chopped sage, Worcestershire sauce,and maple syrup. Stir it all together.

Form it into 6 evenly sized patties…

These are so pretty looking even before you cook them from all the different colored ingredients.

Last step – pan fry them. I just used nonstick spray and placed them in once the pan was heated up.

About 4-5 minutes per side over low heat, then flip and repeat.

That’s it!

The textures and flavors going on here were AWESOME. I loved how the maple syrup, while subtle, complimented the tempeh so well. The grated apple added a delicious sweetness and great texture throughout the burgers as well, and they were so delicious.

I whipped up a quick sauce with 1/3 cup greek yogurt, 1 tbsp maple syrup, and 2 tsp dijon mustard (2 pts+ for the whole thing, I used half) and it was PERFECT with the burgers.

The plan was to eat 2 for dinner, but three may or may not have been consumed because they were so tasty.

What is your absolute favorite kitchen appliance? Before last night, I probably would have told you my stick blender or my tofu press (though I don’t know if that really counts as an appliance). But now, I’m heavily leaning towards my food processor. I can’t wait to experiment with different things!