Black Bean Cakes

I recently tried this recipe for dinner. I was excited to try it because I used to eat black bean cakes in college, and I loved them! The fact that this recipe didn't contain any weird ingredients was also a plus.

The recipe was super easy, and I really liked that I could use prepared salsa (aka - salsa in a jar) instead of having to chop tomatoes, onions, peppers, etc.

First I had to mix together mashed black beans, salsa, corn bread mix, and some chili powder. Here's a picture of what the mixture looked like before cooking:

black bean cake mixture

Next I put about 1/2 cup of the mixture in a skillet for each black bean cake. Actually - I put a heaping scoop which I later learned wasn't the best idea :)

black bean cakes before being flattened and flipped

Flipping the bean cakes wasn't quite as easy as I thought it would be. Next time I'll definitely use only 1/2 cup (or less) per bean cake. The black bean cake at the top in each photo is about 1/2 cup.

black bean cakes after being flipped

As you can see - flipping the black bean cakes turned out to be a little messy. I had in my mind that flipping them would be similar to flipping pancakes. What I didn't take into consideration was the fact that black bean cakes are much denser than pancakes, and I never put more than 2 pancakes in the skillet at a time (I'm just not that skilled yet).  So, flipping 4 oversized black bean cakes was a bit tricky, but all-in-all they turned out well.

Will's plate (note that the black bean cakes are plain)

My plate (note the delicious salsa and sour cream topping!)

I served the black bean cakes over a bed of lettuce - just like they used to do at Furman! I also served them with a sweet potato which worked really well as a side dish, but really half a sweet potato (instead of a whole one for each person) would have been plenty.

The black bean cakes turned out really well and were delicious! I really liked the salsa, bean and corn bread flavor combination.
My husband complained that there was no meat on his plate, but still liked the black bean cakes. He said he would prefer them as a side dish instead of as the main course. I thought they worked well as a main course :)