The Bob’s Burgers Cookbook Review

Who doesn’t love a burger? Lately I’ve been craving to make a burger with a tasty meat-substitute patty, and delicious toppings for a killer combo of flavours and textures. Plus, no burger would be complete without some well-seasoned wedges! This craving led me to rediscover the Bob’s Burgers Cookbook I bought a couple of years ago.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the show, Bob’s Burgers is a cartoon about a man called Bob who runs a burger restaurant with his wife and three children. It’s a comedy and he’s always got a ridiculous sounding burger special up on the board, and so the show writers decided to turn them into a recipe book!

We’ve had this book kicking around for a while, in fact I bought it before we went vegan! This means that the majority of the recipes aren’t vegan, but with the plethora of meat-style patties available these days it’s easy to adapt them. We chose the Mediterr-ain’t Misbehavin’ Burger, as it involves some great flavours and textures we both love. This recipe is actually vegetarian and uses a slice of aubergine as the burger – but we adapted the tzatziki to be vegan and we added a patty to make it a little more filling. Read on for my Bob’s Burgers Cookbook review…

Here’s the recipe: 

• 1 Large aubergine, sliced into ½ – inch thick rounds
• Salt
• 1 15-ounce can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp paprika
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• ½ a cucumber 
• 200ml plain soya yoghurt (substituted for Greek yoghurt)
• 1 whole lemon
• 2 tsp of chopped fresh dill
• 1 tsp chopped fresh mint
• 4 buns
• Rocket leaves

For the wedges:

• 4-5 potatoes
• Oil
• Paprika
• Sage 
• Salt

Recipe Guide & Review

The recipe itself doesn’t state to use a burger patty but I decided it would have a lot more bite. This turned out to be a crucial decision as the burger probably would have been a bit lacklustre without it. 

I started by setting the oven to 180c and preparing the patties and my own seasoned wedges. Slice the potatoes into reasonably sized wedges – this is about personal preference, but bear in mind that the bigger they are the longer they will take to cook. In this instance, we took the opportunity to use up some old baking potatoes but for best results opt for a Maris Piper or Rooster. Place the wedges on a tray and coat with oil, salt, smoked paprika and sage or oregano. Whack the patties on the tray too and pop them in the oven for 30 minutes, checking in often.

I sliced the aubergine with a sharp knife into ½ inch thick disks, then salted on both sides and placed aside for 10 -15 minutes. 

Next, as the recipe instructed I prepared the tzatziki sauce. I chopped the cucumber in half, peeled it and scooped out the seeds. Then it was time to mix it in a bowl with a decent glug of the yoghurt. I found that for 4 burgers, half a tub of yoghurt works best. Add a squeeze of lemon juice, the dill and the mint. This will work just as well with dried dill, which is what I used.

I then added the chickpeas to a frying pan with the aubergine. I recommend seasoning the chickpeas with the cumin, paprika and a splash of water so there is no sticking. 

Pro-tip: slightly squash half the chickpeas with the back of a spoon, as this will help them sit nicely inside the burger, and keep them from rolling out when you eat.

I took everything off the heat when the chickpeas had browned, and the aubergines had slightly softened.

Now for the fun part, assembling the burger! I carefully sliced the buns in half with a bread knife. As seen in the photo, these brioche buns were incredible – they really held all the fillings together. The brand is Make No Bones – a vegan restaurant based in Sheffield, and we found their delicious brioche buns in Tesco!

I buttered the bread and here’s how I layered it up: a bed of rocket, the patty, a spoonful of chickpeas, an aubergine slice and some tzatziki sauce to top it off. I served with my homemade seasoned wedges and some sauce for dipping.

Taste Test

We both absolutely LOVED this burger. The brioche buns have such a great texture, especially when toasted, and we really recommend the Tesco Plant Chef patties to pimp out the recipe. The juicy aubergine, flavourful chickpeas and refreshing tzatziki really made this burger uniquely delicious  – we will be making this one again! I hope you’ve found my Bob’s Burgers Cookbook review useful – let me know in the comments if you’ll be giving this one a go.

This post isn’t sponsored. We just really love the recipe & wanted to share our honest opinion! But if you want to give this and other recipes a go, you can buy The Bob’s Burgers Burger Book here.