These tasty little herby-mushroomy veggie burgers can be served in buns, or on lettuce leaves. Either way they are served with a generous dollop of oven roasted tomato sauce. Both the sauce and burgers freeze well, just defrost before cooking. I usually serve 2-3 burgers per person depending on how hungry they are

For the roasted tomato sauce:

1 x 400g tin plum tomatoes, lightly blitzed

1 teasp aleppo chilli flakes or sweet paprika

1 tbsp olive oil

½ tbsp tomato puree

1 ½ teasp caster sugar

1 tbsp snipped chives

1 tbsp chopped oregano

200ml red wine or water

Salt and pepper

For the burgers:

1½ tbsp olive oil + extra to fry them

1 onion, peeled and finely chopped (180g)

1 small carrot, peeled and finely chopped

1 teasp thyme leaves

1 tbsp oregano leaves, finely chopped

2 tbsp snipped chives

300g chestnut mushrooms, coarsely chopped

1 tbsp soy sauce

2 tbsp pine nuts, toasted and roughly chopped

65g cooked basmati rice, roughly blitzed in a food processor

25g parmesan, finely grated

1 egg

50g sourdough breadcrumbs, blitzed in a food processor

1 teasp aleppo chilli flakes or sweet paprika

35g parsley leaves

Crispy oregano:

1 tbsp oregano

1 ½ tbsp olive oil

To serve:

4-5 burger buns or several lettuce leaves (e.g. little gem), washed and dried

Extra salad leaves

• Start by making the sauce. Heat the oven to 200c. Put the all the ingredients into a 20 cm x 14 cm baking dish. Stir well, season, and bake for an hour stirring once half-way through, until it has thickened and reduced by about half. Remove from the oven and allow to cool a little.

• Meanwhile, make the burgers. Put a tablespoon and a half of the oil into a large frying pan on a medium high heat. Add the onion, carrot, thyme and oregano and cook stirring occasionally for 10 minutes, until the onion has softened and lightly coloured. Add the chives, mushrooms and soy, and cook for a further 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the mixture is nicely browned. Then take off the heat and allow to cool down.

• Once the mushroom mix is cool, stir in the pine nuts, rice, aleppo chilli, parmesan, egg, breadcrumbs and parsley, and mix well to combine. Divide the mixture into roughly 50g pieces, rolls them into balls, making sure that they are tightly compacted and then flatten a little to make 10 small burgers 9cm wide x 1.5cm deep.

• To bring everything together, wipe out the pan, then put it back on a medium high heat with the two tablespoons of oil. Once hot, fry the mini burgers for 3-4 minutes on each side until evenly browned.

• Meanwhile, toast the burger buns (if using). Decant the sauce into a bowl. To make the crispy oregano, heat the oil in a small saucepan over a medium high heat. Once hot, add the oregano leaves and fry, stirring constantly, for two minutes until crispy. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside.

• Finally, create your ‘burger’ by layering the mini burgers on bread/salad, tomato sauce and the fried oregano. Serve immediately.