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Vegan Western Bacon Cheeseburger

Thee Burger Dude
5 from 15 votes
Print Recipe Pin Recipe
Course Burgers
Cuisine American

Ingredients
  

Onion Rings

  • 1 Large Onion

Dry Dredge

  • 1/2 cup Flour
  • 1/4 cup Cornstarch
  • 2 tsp Baking Powder
  • 1 - 2 tsp Salt
  • 1 tsp Cayenne

Wet Dredge

  • 1 cup Plant Milk (Unsweetened)
  • 1 Tbsp Apple Cider Vinegar
  • 1 Tbsp Hot Sauce
  • 1/4 cup Flour

Breadcrumbs

  • 2 cups Breadcrumbs (or Crushed Oyster Crackers)

Instructions
 

Vegan Bacon

BBQ Sauce

  • Make my homemade BBQ Sauce, or use your favorite store-bought!

Onion Rings

  • Cut the onions into 1/4"-1/2” thick slices. Separate them into rings.
  • Add all the dry dredge ingredients to a bowl, do the same with the wet dredge and breadcrumbs respectively. 
  • Fill a large pan or dutch oven about with a couple inches of neutral oil (like peanut, vegetable or canola). Heat the oil to 350 - 375 F. (Air Fry and Baking instructions in notes below and blog post too.)
  • Dredge the onion rings first in the dry, then wet and then coat in the breadcrumbs. Make sure to coat thoroughly and let the excess drip off in each step. 
  • Carefully add the onion rings in batches to the hot oil and fry for about 3 - 4 minutes or until beautiful and golden brown. Let them rest on a wire rack and salt them immediately. 
  • You can keep them warm in the oven on the lowest setting while you make the rest.

Burgers

  • Split the meat into 3 oz balls. Shape them into burger patties, I like to put them between two pieces of parchment or burger paper and smash them with a spatula or burger press.
  • Grill your buns in some butter in a pan over medium heat.
  • Grill your patties over medium high heat for 3 minutes or until nice and browned.
  • Flip your patties, add a slice of vegan cheese on top of each one, then a little bit of water to the pan, cover and then steam to melt the cheese.
  • Cook for 1 minute, the cheese should be melted (if not continue cooking until it does melt). Remove from heat, and then assemble the burger as follows from bottom to top: bottom bun, BBQ sauce, onion rings, two cheeseburger patties, vegan bacon, more BBQ sauce, top bun!
  • ENJOY!

Notes

Making everything from scratch is a bit of work, so if you are impatient, using store bought BBQ sauce, vegan bacon and onion rings might be the way to go. However, if you have the time, I highly suggest making everything from scratch. Not only is it fun and useful, but it's way better too! You'll have leftover onion rings and BBQ sauce, but you won't be mad! The onion rings can be frozen and reheated later too.
For the bacon, I'm using my Rice Paper Bacon recipe, which can be found HERE.
And like most of my recipes, this is really just an outline. I encourage you to add or subtract things to your taste! The BBQ sauce can really be modified quite a bit, as can the onion rings, so go for it!
Speaking of the onion rings, I highly recommend frying these but if you want to bake or air fry them you can do that too! To air fry, spray the breaded onion rings with a little cooking spray. Then air fry at 380 F for about 12 - 15 minutes or until golden brown and crispy.
To bake them, spray the breaded rings with cooking spray and add them to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or cooking spray. Bake in a 400 F oven for 16 minutes, flipping half way through, or until golden brown and crispy!
Keyword vegan carl's jr, vegan cheeseburger, vegan western bacon cheeseburger
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