Vegan Patty Melt
A Vegan Patty Melt loaded with Caramelized Onions, a Creamy Pepper Sauce, on grilled Texas Toast will make you say What A Burger!
It’s been a while since I’ve veganized WHATABURGER so I thought I’d make one of my all time favorites, the Vegan Patty Melt! Now look, I’ll admit, I’ve never had the original from Whataburger, but I can say with pretty full confidence that if you make this the way I did, it’ll cure any craving you might have for it. And if you’ve never had one, then you need to make this ASAP as it’s just a darn good burger. Without hyperbole, it’s in my top 5 that I’ve ever made vegan or not!
If you have tried the original from Whataburger, and make this, please let me know how it stacks up! Oh, and this recipe is also available in my Cookbook: VEGAN FAST FOOD! Check it out if you wanna make more vegan fast food copycats!
What is a patty melt?
Traditionally a Patty Melt is served on rye bread, with Swiss cheese and grilled onions. I’ve had it many different ways. With white bread, sourdough, maybe some pickles and mustard. I try not to gate-keep things, so for me, as long as it’s a cheeseburger with onions between some grilled bread, it’s a Patty Melt to me! You’re essentially making a grilled cheese with a burger patty and some onions. So add whatever you like!
I will say that the flavors and textures of this Patty Melt are pretty perfect. So make it as is before trying any modifications!
ingredients for a vegan whataburger patty melt
- Texas Toast – So of course, Whataburger eschews the traditions and goes for something more Texas, namely Texas Toast! Which is really just thick cut white bread. I use the brand Rainbo, and to be honest, it’s hard to find where I live in Southern California. I can really only find it at Smart & Final. Wal-Mart also has a Texas Toast as well. So if you can’t find any, I would suggest using a sourdough, or any thick white bread you can find. Just make sure you butter it well and grill it until golden brown!
- Caramelized Onions – I’m not gonna lie, it takes a while to grill the onions properly. But, it’s totally worth it in my opinion! You can even make my Freezer Friendly Caramelized Onions beforehand. Or use the leftovers to make some In-N-Out Burgers or some Vegan Onion Dip!
- Vegan Burger Patties – I’m just using Impossible for this recipe. But you can also make my Vegan Burger Patties instead!
- Creamy Pepper Sauce – For this amazing sauce we’ll need Vegan Mayo, Mustard, Chipotles in Adobo, Vinegar, Garlic and Onion Powder and some Salt & Pepper. I highly recommend blending the sauce as it will make it taste that much better, and the texture will be smoother and more emulsified as well.
- Cheese – For the Cheese, use a Vegan Swiss if you can. I used the one by Daiya. But any white cheese like provolone, mozzarella will do. Heck, even cheddar or American will be fine! So use whatever you can!
How to make a vegan whataburger patty melt
First let’s make the caramelized onions. Melt some vegan butter and heat up some oil in a large dutch oven or wide skillet. You can also use two separate pots or pans if you have the stovetop space. This will speed things up, or you can do even more onions.
Add the onions, stir to coat them in the butter and oil. Add a few pinches of salt, stir again. And now, we wait.
At first, you can crank the heat to medium high, this will speed up the process. Just stir the onions every minute or so.
After about 15 – 20 minutes, you should see some browning, and some fond sticking to the pan. This is a good time to lower the heat to medium or medium low.
Then simply cook them until they are golden brown, keeping an eye on the heat and adjusting as needed.
This is what mine look like after about an hour. I like to finish off with 1/4 cup Vegan Beef Broth and 1 tsp of Balsamic Vinegar.
I was cooking more in another pot, and added them all together.
This makes a lot of caramelized onions, and you can totally freeze them in small portions for later! Check out my Freezer Friendly Caramelized Onions!
Next whip up the Creamy Pepper Sauce by combining everything together. I highly recommend blending it for a better taste and texture.
Grill your Texas Toast in some Vegan Butter until golden brown.
Now all we need to do is cook out burger patties, season to taste of course! Then flip them, and add some vegan cheese and cover to steam and melt.
Lastly, assemble the sandwich like so, and enjoy!
storage
Store leftover sauce and onions in the fridge and use within 3 days (or freeze onions). The great thing about this recipe is if you make enough for leftovers, you can whip up a Patty Melt in under 10 minutes!
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Vegan Patty Melt
Ingredients
- 2 slices Texas Toast
- 2 slices Vegan Cheese (Swiss, Provolone etc)
- 8 oz Vegan Meat (Impossible, Beyond)
Creamy Pepper Sauce
- 1 cup Vegan Mayo
- 2 tsp Yellow Mustard
- 2 tsp White Vinegar
- 2 Tbsp Diced Chipotles in Adobo
- 1/4 tsp Onion Powder
- 1/4 tsp Garlic Powder
- Salt & Pepper
Caramelized Onions
- 3 lbs. Yellow or Brown Onions (diced)
- 2 Tbsp Vegan Butter
- 2 Tbsp Neutral Oil
- Salt to taste
- Sugar to taste
- 1 Tbsp Balsamic Vinegar (optional)
- 1/4 – 1/2 cup Vegan Beef Broth (optional)
Instructions
Caramelized Onions
- The most time consuming part of this is grilling the onions, so let's start that before anything else. Add the vegan butter and oil to a pan over medium / medium high heat. Once melted and bubbling, add your onions and stir to coat. Stir it frequently, and after 10 minutes, add in a pinch of salt and sugar, which will help with the flavor and browning.
- You can try to multitask and grill the onions while you prepare the rest of the burger components, but either way, just keep an eye on them and make sure they don't brown too fast, or even worse, burn! Lower the heat as needed, stir frequently, and deglaze with some water if they stick to the pan. They should be perfect in about 45 minutes to 1 hour.
- Optionally, you can add 1 Tbsp of balsamic vinegar and 1/4 – 1/2 cup of vegan beef broth. Then just cook them down and reduce the broth. This will add some extra beefy flavor! Once they are done, remove from the heat and reserve.
Creamy Pepper Sauce
- Combine everything in a blender (I recommend using something like a bullet blender if you got it). Blend until smooth and luxurious! You can skip the blender step, but it won't be nearly as good!
Patty Melt
- The rest is easy! Just spread some vegan butter or mayo on one side of your Texas Toast and grill over medium heat until golden brown. Flip and grill on the other side just for a minute or so to slightly brown the inside as well. Let them cool on a wire rack.
- Raise the heat to medium high and then add your burger patties and season with salt and pepper. Grill for 3 minutes, then flip, add a slice of vegan cheese to each patty. Then drop in a little water to the pan, and cover the pan to steam and melt the cheese. Once melted remove from the pan.
- Assemble the burger as follows from bottom to top: Texas Toast, 2 cheeseburger patties, onions, sauce, Texas Toast! And dig in!
Never ate the original, but I don’t think it can be better. So delicious!
I took 1.5 lbs. of onions and 1 burger serving of sauce and it was really enough for 4 burgers . seems like someone really likes onions and sauce 🙂
Thank you so much for this recipe!
Nice, so glad you liked it, it’s one of my all time favorites!! Thank you!