girls night in + the best veggie burger recipe!

Now that we're in our twenties, it's harder for my group of girlfriends to get together on a frequent basis. Between work, school, relationships, and family commitments, it's hard to find a time when we're all available. With summer coming to a close, I decided to get the girls together for a relaxing night in. I knew that we'd all be exhausted from the work week, so I planned a relaxed evening for the girls filled with lots of good food, girl talk, movies, and even a manicure station! With bikini season still in full gear, I opted for a lighter menu: MorningStar Farms® veggie burgers, salad, and iced tea.  The menu may not have been high in calories, but it was definitely high in flavor! 

After days of debating on the menu for the party, I stumbled across these new MorningStar Farms® veggie burger flavors in the store. I had been contemplating the idea of a burger bar, but I knew my friends might not be too happy about the off-the-chart calorie counts. With only 110 calories each, these MorningStar Farms® veggie burgers sounded delicious and sparked my idea for a veggie burger bar!

I'm kind of famous for my pico de gallo, so it's a mandatory party staple for me. This time, I made a double batch to have enough for chips and dip and an extra bowl to top the MorningStar Farms® Spicy Black Bean veggie burgers! The key to any good pico de gallo is fresh ingredients, so I stopped by the local farmer's market to pick up a few vine-ripened tomatoes, jalapenos, limes, and a bunch of cilantro.

To make the pico de gallo, chop 3-4 medium tomatoes into small cubes. Then finely dice your desired amount of jalapenos (I use about 1.5 jalapenos per 3-4 tomatoes) along with a large handful of cilantros. Add the chopped vegetables and herbs to a large bowl and squeeze the juice of 1-2 limes over the mixture. Add salt to taste, and let the mixture sit for about 30 minutes to allow the flavors to combine!

This simple salsa recipe is healthy and flavorful addition to salads and sandwiches, and of course it's a great dip for chips and veggies.

And now onto the main event...the veggie burger and salad bar! When you're having a get together with friends, make-your-own food bars are always a hit. Everyone gets to choose their toppings, so every guest is guaranteed to love their meal. Plus, you can prep all of the items in advance to make party setup a breeze.

After preparing the veggie and burger bar, it was time for our girly get together! Everyone was starving, so we rushed outdoors to catch the last bit of the afternoon's sunshine. 

While I seared the MorningStar Farms® Spicy Black Bean and Mediterranean Chickpea veggie burgers to order, I had all of the side items prepped and ready to go! After handing each lady her desired veggie burger patty, they were free to add their desired toppings and scoop up a large portion of fresh green salad. All of the girls had fun dressing up their veggie burgers with their selections of avocado, tomato, peppers, cucumbers, cucumber-yogurt-feta sauce, jalapeno ranch dressing, and fresh pico de gallo! We even had a bit of a competition to see who could come up with the best burger!

My personal favorite burger of the evening was my Mediterranean Chickpea Veggie Burger. The MorningStar Farms® Mediterranean Chickpea veggie burger patty includes chickpeas, spinach, and roma tomatoes, and it might be the best veggie burger I've ever had. Seriously, I'll be bragging about this veggie burger recipe to everyone I know. 

To create my dream burger, I added spring mix lettuce, a juicy sliced tomato, a handful of cucumber slices, and a thick coating of cucumber yogurt dip with feta that I bought at the grocery store. The burger took about five minutes total to make, and it will be on permanent rotation in my weekly meal schedule!

Another top runner was the Spicy Black Bean Burger with pico de gallo and jalapeno ranch. Oh my goodness. The MorningStar Farms® Spicy Black Bean veggie burger was a huge hit with the ladies! Combined with a few toppings, it creates a show-stopping and healthy meal.

We paired our Spicy Black Bean veggie burgers with spring mix lettuce, spinach, a healthy dollop of pico de gallo, and a bit of jalapeno ranch dressing. There's no way you'd ever miss meat with this burger. While we used the veggie burgers in the traditional fashion, you could easily crumble the patties for tacos, casseroles, pasta dishes, or even as a toppings for salads! The MorningStar Farms® veggie burgers are an extremely versatile product, and I'm looking forward to working them into more recipes to reduce the calorie count of the my favorite dishes without reducing the flavor!

I enjoyed every single second of our carefree girly evening, and I can't wait to have another get together with the girls! All of my friends were totally impressed by the calorie count and, more importantly, the flavor of both MorningStar Farms® veggie burgers! We all agreed that we definitely didn't miss the meat and would totally add these veggie burgers into our weekly meal rotation.