Love a real burger in the summer, but the rest of the year when the urge strikes my choice is Amy's California Veggie Burger. Never cooked one on the grill, so can't offer any advice there.

Gardenburger
http://www.gardenburger.com/
They also have a vegan variety.

I'm a long-time vegetarian. Original Gardenburgers are a really good option for a burger that isn't trying to look or taste like meat. If you want something more like a traditional burger, Boca Burgers All American Flame Grilled are pretty good. Neither of these are vegan, but you can get the vegan versions if you need them.

Just a quick note, if you have any dedicated vegetarians coming, they may not be willing to eat something that came off a grill used to cook meat. That can really squick a vegetarian or vegan. One solution is to get a tiny, cheap, tabletop grill and use that. Another is to cook them on top of foil on the main grill, which isn't ideal. Or you can fry them.

If you want to make a homemade black bean burger (that you'd fry instead of grill), these are simple, fast and yummy. You don't have to use whole wheat breadcrumbs, any will do.

From a mostly vegetarian who is also a professional cook, I like Gardenburger's Chipotle Black Bean variety the best; a bit more flavor than the original gardenburger.

Thanks for the very helpful suggestions-I am also auditioning veggie burgers for personal consumption ;). We don't eat red meat any more and I'm starting to cluck after years of chicken consumption. A good vegetarian burger would be a nice alternative menu item.

Prettybluehouse, thanks also for the tip about not cooking vegetarian entrees on a grill used for meat. Good point and one I wouldn't have necessarily considered.

The thing I like about the one I suggested is that it is actually good microwaved! M/w first and then add the slice of cheese and zap again for 30 seconds or less. So good on a toasted English muffin and so easy. I also really like the Praeger spinach ones, but only sauteed (with a bit of yogurt and dill, yum). None of them are at all burger like.

Bit of a tangent here--baby steps into plant based eating is what's happening at my house. I just this week did veggie fried rice, sooooooo good. I am at a point of being totally and utterly bored senseless with my chicken/fish/pasta dinners. Time to shake up our mealtimes and hopefully improve our diet as we do it.

I love veggies. I'm glad to see the one that MTN suggested isn't trying to be a burger. I think I may just try them.

A nice option is a Portobello Mushroom in place of the meat. I love them and prefer them to the veggie burgers. Yummy.

Marianated tofu is also good on the grill. And Mac and cheese and vegetarian baked beans have always been BBQ hits with pretty much all age groups and both vegetarians and non-vegetarians.

As far as needing a separate grill, every pot, pan and plate in my house has almost certainly had meat cooked or served in or on them. So if that level of separation is required, I just don't see how I could ever host vegetarians at my house. The vegetarians I know all live with people who do eat meat and when they grill, it all goes on the same grill.

If you have a Trader Joe's, we have often enjoyed their veggie masala burgers.

crl, the level of comfort depends on the person. What grosses out my vegetarian family is that grills don't get cleaned with soap between uses the way pots, pans, utensils, and dishes do. Grills are so much harder to clean and when I'm at someone's house as a guest, I have no idea if they've cleaned the grill before using it. I can be pretty sure we are going to get clean plates though. I suppose the grill could be cleaned, the veggie food cooked first, and then the meat.

I was offering my thoughts on this because most non vegetarian hosts don't think of it. I've been at a lot of dinners where half way through the host mentions the meaty things they grilled and then tells us the pizza we're eating was done on the grill too. Or that there's fish paste in the salad dressing. Or a little chicken broth in the vegetables. Or the tomato sauce was cooked with pork. Or there's lard in the dessert. Or all of the above. Even a little bit of meat contamination can set some vegetarians up for a lovely evening of vomiting and diarrhea. Ask me how I know! Actually, you all probably don't want to do that.

But doesn't a grill have fire, which is used to sterilizing things? We used flames/fire to sterilize in high school and college science classes. I also sterilize a needle through a flame if I have to perform at home "surgery" on a bad splinter, etc. I can see how there is perceived contamination, but just running the grill on high between foods should kill any residue of the previous item.

Vegetarians have physical reactions to meat? I can understand someone with Crohn's or similar diseases having a physical reaction to certain foods, but a plain old vegetarian? I would label that as an "allergy" or food intolerance and not a vegetarian. If that is the case, it would be up to that "vegetarian" to let the host know. Otherwise how could they know?

Hmm, cast iron pans don't get washed with soap either--I think many grill grates are made of cast iron. So frying something isn't necessarily better than grilling it.

I know better than to mix meat ingredients in and think something is still vegetarian. My kid has food allergies so I'm all over reading labels and I know all about cross-contamination.

But I guess I need to start asking vegetarian guests whether the possibility of cross contamination is a problem and if it is, I guess I need to figure out pre-packaged food, because I just can't guarantee there isn't any at all in my home kitchen. Just like I only buy pre-packaged snacks to share at school, because I can't guarantee no nut cross contamination if I cook at home for my kids' classmates with nut allergies. (And I have had one of the moms of a kid with a severe nut allergy tell me she would totally trust me because she knows I understand and how careful I am, but I'm just not willing to take even a small risk of making someone sick.)

How do you manage restaurants? Or do you just not go to them? Or only go to vegetarian restaurants?

chipsa, I should let someone with more knowledge confirm. But my understanding is that if you stop eating meat after a while your body can't process it very well and it will make you feel ill. I have never heard that merely cooking on the same grill as meat would cause this kind of reaction though. And the vegetarians I know cook on the same grill at the same time as meat--I've watched them do it. But maybe because they always do that their bodies continue to tolerate that level of exposure?