Pesto Burgers with Sanitarium Nutmeat

I grew up hating nuts for some reason even though the rest of my family loved them. I didn’t like them in my cookies, brownies, salads, or any other edible dish for that matter. I suppose it was peanuts and pistachios that really started warming me up to the nut family (and yes I know, peanuts are legumes and tomatoes are fruits and blueberries aren’t berries, who cares). Try as I might, I could not resist the deliciousness of honey roasted peanuts and let’s be honest, watching a movie with a bowl full of pistachios is just a plain ol’ good time. Over time, nuts in general just grew on me. And when I started trying to lose weight before the wedding last spring, they became a pretty key component to my diet.

Nuts are awesome. They should be a part of everyone’s diet, but especially vegetarians. They’re one of the best sources of plant protein, not to mention the fact that they’re full of fiber, unsaturated (read good) fat and even antioxidants. This is probably why someone somewhere got the idea to make veggie meat out of them.

Most of the meat substitutes I buy are made from soy, but the last time I was at the Adventist Book Center (my favorite veggie food emporium), I noticed a nut based veggie meat called Nutmeat, which I had never tried. Not only was the product new to me, the brand was as well.

Sanitarium is an Australian vegetarian and health food company that’s apparently been around for over 100 years. Their most popular items are the Aussie staples Weet-bix and Marmite. Sanitarium has several canned products, but Nutmeat appears to be one of the healthiest with almost 20 grams of protein per serving, as well as some iron, potassium and fiber. It’s also low in carbs and calories and has no cholesterol to speak of. On the other hand, it has more fat than I’m used to in a meat substitute (8.5 grams per serving), and plenty of sodium (310 mg). The serving size isn’t very big either. Eighty-five grams come out to about a ¾ inch slice. It’s worth noting though that there are only five ingredients: water, wheat gluten, peanuts, onions and salt. That’s considerably more natural than your average veggie meat.

Nutmeat pretty much tastes like nuts, but the flavor is sort of earthy as well. It definitely needs some assistance and luckily, it’s mild enough that the peanuttiness won’t really conflict with whatever you decide to add to it. I liked the idea of grinding it up and making burgers, but I really wanted to try something new as well. The jar of pesto languishing in my fridge gave me all the inspiration I needed.

Pesto Burgers with Sanitarium Nutmeat
Serves 6

1 can Sanitarium Nutmeat, ground
1 large tomato, diced
1 Tbls olive oil
½ medium onion, chopped
1 c pesto
1 – 1½ c Italian breadcrumbs
1 egg, beaten
Olive oil


Saute onions in olive oil over medium heat in until tender.

Combine all ingredients in large bowl and mix well.


Cover the bottom of a frying pan with additional oil and heat on medium. When oil is hot, use an ice cream scooper to place balls of burger mixture into hot pan. Cover and cook for about 5 minutes. Lightly press down on burgers with spatula to flatten bit, then flip and cook covered for an additional 5 minutes or until both sides are golden and burger is cooked through.

Tips: If the burgers seem to be falling apart, don’t panic. You could always mix in another egg or just turn the temperature down a bit and cook them longer. It will feel like they’re taking forever, but you must fight the urge to turn the heat up and cook them faster! This will make both sides dark, and will leave the middle uncooked and sloppy. Also, the only thing standing between you and a vegan version of this burger is an egg replacer and a vegan pesto. I used a regular store bought pesto (which has some parmesan) for half the batch, but in the other batch I used Paulette’s vegan pesto. She leaves out the cheese AND the pine nuts (just because she doesn’t like them). It’s super flavorful alternative. Pesto is very forgiving, so you can start with a basic recipe and tweak it anyway you like. Or just buy it…