This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of LIBBY’S Pumpkin for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine. 
Baked Pumpkin-Black Bean Sliders with a creamy Avocado Sauce are perfect for your summer entertaining. They are loaded with good nutrition and are a wonderful vegetarian option for your next cookout.
My daughter is a vegetarian so I’m always trying to come up with meals that she can eat, but are still appealing to the whole family. Not always easy! But no one could resist these Pumpkin-Black Bean Sliders. My “got to have meat” husband wanted seconds.
Pumpkin is an ingredient I love cooking with and LIBBY’S Pumpkin makes it easy to add fresh pumpkin flavor and nutrition to recipes all year long. Pumpkin is one of the most versatile ingredients imaginable. It compliments both sweet and savory foods and adds lots of Beta Carotene, extra fiber, and Vitamin A to your meals. You can use pumpkin to replace butter, eggs, or oil in baked goods to reduce calories and fat. (A very good thing this time of year when those jeans are exchanged for shorts! We’re not even going to talk about bathing suits.)
In these Pumpkin-Black Bean Sliders, the LIBBY’S Pumpkin, with its exceptional moistness, provides all the binder needed. No eggs or fats are necessary, making these sliders vegan-friendly and low-fat. Use something like tofu in the avocado sauce instead of sour cream to make a vegan slider. The black beans add substance to the sliders and I’ve added onion, garlic, red bell pepper, corn , cumin, and chipotle peppers for tons of flavor. My favorite thing about pumpkin is that its mild and sweet flavor works well with just about any ingredient or seasoning imaginable. Think of it like a blank canvas to which you can add ingredients to create a culinary masterpiece. Baking these sliders in the oven helps keep them super healthy, but you can also cook them in a skillet using a little vegetable oil or olive oil until lightly browned on each side. All of the ingredients are already cooked, so all you have to worry about is heating them through and getting a little yummy browning action on the outsides.
Serve on slider buns or rolls with a creamy Avocado Sauce, fresh tomato and cilantro for a delicious and nutritious summer meal. Their small size makes them more appealing to kids (and maybe adults too!). And stay tuned. I have a reduced-fat pumpkin chocolate chip cookie recipe coming up in a few weeks that can easily be made into ice cream sandwiches to help you beat the summer heat! In the meantime, visit #PumpkinCan to share your favorite #PumpkinCan facts through LIBBY’S Pumpkin on Twitter, LIBBY’S Pumpkin on Pinterest, and LIBBY’S Pumpkin on Facebook for a chance to win weekly prizes.
Baked Pumpkin-Black Bean Sliders with Avocado Sauce
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon Vegetable oil
- ½ cup finely diced red onion
- ½ cup finely diced red bell pepper
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1 (15-ounce) can black beans drained, rinsed, and dried (blot dry with paper towels)
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1-2 chopped chipotle peppers
- ¼ cup cooked corn
- ½ cup LIBBY’S 100% pure pumpkin (from a 15 oz. can)
- ½ cup panko crumbs or more
- Cooking spray
- Fresh cilantro
- Slider buns or small rolls
- 2 plum tomatoes, sliced
Avocado Sauce
- 2 small avocados
- ¼ cup sour cream
- 1 tablespoon lime juice
- 2 tablespoon finely diced red onion
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
Instructions
- Heat vegetable oil in a skillet and sauté onion, red pepper, and garlic until soft, about 2-3 minutes. Add cumin and let mixture cool.
- Place beans in a food processor with 1 teaspoon salt and chipotle peppers. Process until beans are mostly in small pieces. Add the onion mixture and do a few more pulses to get everything mixed well. Transfer to a medium bowl.
- Add corn, pumpkin, and panko crumbs to the beans mixture and mix together well. If the mixture feels to loose and will not hold its shape well, add extra panko crumbs.
- Shape into 8-10 slider-sized patties and place on a large plate or tray. Refrigerate for 30-60 minutes.
- To make sauce, mash together the avocado, sour cream, and lime juice until smooth. Or you can process them in a food processor. Add red onion and salt. Refrigerate until needed.
- Heat oven to 375 degrees. Spray both sides of sliders with cooking spray and place on a foil-lined baking sheet. Bake for about 6-8 minutes per side. Alternately you can sauté them in 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil for about 3 minutes per side.
- Serve on slider buns with avocado sauce, tomato, and cilantro.
Notes
Nutrition
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Amazingly delicious and creative idea! I am always on the look out for getting a vegetarian meal in once a week and I know my boys would like this one. Pinned and shared.
These look awesome, Christin! If all veggie burgers looked this good, I may have been a vegetarian! 😉 Just kidding. But still, amazing recipe!
They look great, my daughter is a vegetarian and I understand the problem of finding recipes! 🙂 My daughter might like these, not sure she is really picky.
I made sliders yesterday as well, Meatball Sliders. Check out my recipe!
Michael
http://michaelswoodcraft.wordpress.com/2014/06/03/meatball-sliders/
Those are beautiful burgers. Must make.
Thank you Suzanne! Hope you enjoy them if you make them 🙂
Snap! I just made a similar veggie burger with black beans in a couple of days ago! Great idea to add pumpkin. I love the sweet taste of pumpkin so I bet it’s beautiful in a burger.
Oooh, hope you have your recipe on your blog! I can never have enough veggie burger recipes. And the pumpkin works very well both as a binder and flavor enhancer. 🙂
These sound delicious Christin! My sister is a vegetarian, and I’m always looking for new recipes to make her. Love that these have pumpkin in them! Bet it gives them great flavor.
These sliders look amazing! I’m always looking for good vegetarian burger type recipes! And with that avocado spread …. so good! I love the pumpkin / black bean combo!
I’d be all over these, with some extra avocado sauce for me, please!
ela h.
I’m all about the avocado sauce too and luckily my husband isn’t, so I get all of it 🙂
They look yummy! And I really like that avocado sauce..
These are a great veggie burger. I never really think of using pumpkin outside of fall!
Fantastic idea for the pumpkin!!!! Having a great veggie burger/slider recipe is indeed a handy thing to have in one’s arsenal!! I give up meat a couple times a year, more for “cleansing” purposes. I find that in each cycle, my creativity heightens with regards to being creative from a vegetarian or vegan slant. I also find that even when I return to eating meat, that it becomes more and more “meat on the side” integration in to our meals. As always great idea, and beautiful pic!!
What a great way to bind burgers together!
In the last year or two, I’ve developed a thing for veggie burgers! I love that there’s pumpkin in these, such an interesting twist!!
Yum!
We don’t get canned pumpkin here in the UK but I have found one or two places that sell American food items and I have bought Libby’s pumpkin a few times (I have some in the pantry at the moment, actually) and usually use it in baking but LOVE the sound of these veggie burgers. Really delicious! I’m on a veggie kick at the moment so this would be a great recipe to try. Pinned 🙂
Wow!! This looks amazing! What a great combo of flavors! YUM! 🙂 I love love LOVE avocado!!
These look delicious! My niece has decide to become a vegan and it too is such a challenge to create meals for her. I personally love black bean burgers and this combination with pumpkin sounds amazing. Pinning!
I wondered what you were up to when I saw this on Instagram! I love entertaining and sometimes I have no good options for vegetarian guests. I feel bad offering just veggies kabobs! This is the perfect solution, adding these to our 4th of July menu!
You’re outdoing yourself with these veggie burgers, Christin! I love the flavor combinations in this, and can’t wait to try it!
Thanks Marcie! I was really pleased with how they turned out 🙂
These sliders look simply amazing!!! I want one for breakfast. Is that bad?