Hawaiian Portobello Burgers

While on a visit to California to visit family my hubby had lunch at an old favorite place of ours; a restaurant called Islands. One of their specialties, the Hawaiian Burger.

How do you take a burger and make it Hawaiian?  Simple really.  What makes it so good?  Really only two main ingredients: teriyaki sauce and pineapple.  Anyone who has read our blog posts before knows that I am a firm believer (been proven to me time and again) that it is all about the flavor, the seasonings, the marinade, the sauce.  With this dish, I was able to prove that yet again.  It isn't the burger that makes this dish as much as it is the sauce.

And so I set off for the market to pick out five beautiful organic portobellos . . .

 

After giving them a good gentle scrub, remove the caps from the stems.

(I finely chop the stems to use later in a pasta dish or in a soup base.)

 

    Using a fork, carefully poke holes in the caps to allow for the marinade to sink in.

 Make an oil infusion of oil, fresh minced ginger and garlic. Brush onto both sides of your mushroom caps.

Then into the pan for a quick cookin' or my personal favorite, onto the grill.   Make sure to flip them halfway so that they get a nice sear on them. I include my pineapple slices in this step, as well. 

Once your mushrooms have been both seared and have become tender, top each of them with a slice of your favorite vegan cheese.  I love nearly all of the flavors of the Daiya slices but Swiss would have to be my favorite choice for this particular sandwich. So yum!!

 

Once your cheese is melted, all that's left is to assemble your sandwich.  I drizzle a bit of sauce on each of my bun sides to start (but not too much or your bun gets soggy). 

Then make mine a double, piling two cheese-laden mushrooms on top of one another, a slice of grilled pineapple, another drizzle (a more ample one this time) of my homemade teriyaki sauce, and a thin slice of either raw or freshly sauteed sweet onion.

Pair it with your side dish (or two) of choice and . . .

There ya have it!

Aloha!

LOVE AND LIGHT!

Amber