What to Do with Chickpeas: Easy & Nutritious Recipes

Introduction to Chickpeas

Chickpeas (also called garbanzo beans) are one of the most versatile and nutritious ingredients you can keep in your pantry. According to Canada’s Food Guide https://food-guide.canada.ca/en/, we should eat less ultra-processed food since it is typically high in added sugars, saturated fat, highly processed oils, artificial additives, and low in fiber. Instead, we should eat more whole foods like fresh fruits, fresh salads, whole grains, and foods that are high in protein but low in saturated fats and low in cholesterol like nuts, seeds, lentils, and beans.

Chickpeas fit perfectly into this recommendation as they’re:

• An excellent source of protein, fiber, and several vitamins and minerals such as folate, iron, calcium, magnesium, zinc, copper, potassium, and manganese
• Beneficial for gut health, heart, bones, muscles, brain, skin, hair, bowel movement, preventing blood sugar spikes, lowering LDL cholesterol, and are filling
• Best when paired with veggies and grains to form a complete meal

How to Prepare Chickpeas

To lower the environmental pollution burden and toxic loading in our bodies, the best chickpeas are organic, homegrown or locally-sourced, but canned chickpeas can be used periodically too.

For Dried Chickpeas: Typically chickpeas are dehydrated for storage, therefore to use them they first need to be rehydrated by being soaked in ample water overnight or alternatively boiled in ample water for 5 minutes and let to soak in the hot water for 1 hour. Once rehydrated, they need to be rinsed and brought to a boil in fresh water. Then they should be cooked on medium heat for at least 30 minutes or until desired tenderness is reached. Rinse, drain, and enjoy in one of the following recipes. Personally, I like to batch cook 1 kg of dried chickpeas at a time and then freeze them in 1 cup freezer bags that I just have to thaw in the microwave oven and then they are ready to be use in a recipe.

For Canned Chickpeas: Canned chickpeas are already cooked; therefore, you just need to rinse them, drain them, and enjoy in one of these recipes.

Storage Tips: Extra cooked chickpeas or leftovers (that don’t have any leafy greens) can be stored in a covered glass container in the fridge for several days or in the freezer for several months.

Quick & Easy Chickpea Recipes

All these recipes require roughly 2 cups of cooked or canned chickpeas. They are intended to be simple, nutritious, delicious, and relatively quick.

As the cook, feel free to adjust the flavors and quantities, and experiment with additional ingredients to your taste.

Explore My Chickpea Recipes

Each recipe is ready in 30 minutes or less and packed with plant-based protein! Click any image above to view the complete recipe with ingredients, instructions, and tips!