Oopsie Veggie Burgers: Low Carbing on Work Days

Low Carb Veggie Cheeseburger

It's hard to pack a healthy, robust vegetarian lunch. It needs to hold up to packing, fill you up and be low carb. I work long hours (12-13 hour shifts). It's too easy to run by the vending machine for a bag of chips halfway through my shirt, and sometimes even grab some trail mix or crackers later. I work at a hospital, so there's always free bagels, nutri-grain bars, candy, trail mix, crackers and everything else. If I'm hungry, I go for those quick snacks, so I try to pack a filling lunch.

One of my go to meals has always been either a cheese sandwich or a veggie burger. Now that I'm cutting back on carbs and eliminating grains, those are not an option. Or are they?

I tried Oopsie rolls for the second time and they turned out great. The first time I followed Cleochatra's recipe exactly and I thought they were a bit too creamy and soft for me. This time, I doubled the eggs and used less cream cheese.

My recipe:

6 large eggs
dash of apple cider vinegar (or cream of tartar. I don't keep that on hand)
4 ounces of cream cheese (the original recipe would use 6 ounces).

This makes about 12 "rolls" of induction friendly, gluten free, carb friendly "bread." These things are 74 calories, 4.3 grams of protein. 6.2 grams of fat and only 0.3 grams of carb each. It does take two to build a sandwich, but even then it's an amazingly healthy snack.

Oopsie rolls don't taste exactly like bread, but they are durable enough to make a sandwich, and the cream cheese makes it moist and delicious. Check Cleochatra's site to find the exact proccess. They are super easy. The hardest part is beating your eggs until they are stiff. They have to be super stiff, like you're making meringue. It took me less than 10 minutes to make them.

Oopsie rolls are perfect for lunch

I've found these hold up pretty well to packing. I store these on the counter. I tried the first batch in the fridge and they got a little moist (setting them in a warm oven for a bit helped).   You can freeze them and then heat them up in a warm oven once they're thawed.  If you're not going to eat a whole batch within a day or two, freeze them or refrigerate them.  You risk making yourself really sick otherwise.

The first day I made them, I used them as a meal side dish. When I had to work the next day, I tossed 2 into a plastic bag for lunch, and packed a cooked veggie patty and some cheese. I didn't refrigerate or microwave the oopsie buns, but I did stick the patty and cheese in the fridge. When lunch time rolled around, I heated the patty and assembled my burger.

These things are delicious with veggie burger and it held up well. I could have probably eaten two or three.  They do get a little smushy as you eat them, but so does bread.  In some ways, the little pockets of cream cheese really compliment the burger and make it even better than dry bread. Veggie burgers tend to be dry anyway.  

They hold up surprisingly well

These rolls are very versatile.  You can slather these with some garlic butter and cheese and pop them under the broiler for garlic bread.  You can flatten them out and make pizza.  They take well to molding. If you wanted them to look more bun like, you could use a small cake pan.  You could probably even fashion some sort of hoagie roll out of them.

Here's the breakdown for the whole veggie burger. Cutting out the cheese or using a lower carb cheese (I used American) would really cut the carbs.

Burger:
6.0 grams of fat
15 grams of protein
5.0 grams of carbohydrates

Cheese:
8.8 fat
0.5 grams of protein
6.3 grams of carbohydrates

Oopsie Rolls (2):
12.4 grams of fat
8.6 grams of protein
0.6 grams of carbohydrates

Total:
27.2 grams of fat
24.1 grams of protein
6.1 grams of carbohydrates