I didn’t eat chickpeas growing up, but lately I’ve been eating them more and more. Because they’re relatively high in protein, they make for a hearty addition to a salad or when roasted, make for addicting snack food. Most recently, I bought organic, low-sodium canned chickpeas from my trusty neighborhood Publix, thinking they’d be as healthy as canned chickpeas get, but boy when I opened that can was I (pardon my bluntness) grossed out. Those poor little legumes were suspended in a mystery gel that smelled like funky cat food. I didn’t need any more convincing to decide on cooking my own chickpeas from then on. So here begins the unexpectedly time-intensive task of soaking, boiling, and baking chickpeas.

Chickpea + Carrot Salad w/Lemon Tahini Dressing

To cook my chickpeas, I first rinsed and soaked them in water for 4 hours, and then boiled them on high heat for 50 minutes. Most recipes say to soak the dried chickpeas overnight though and simmer for an hour and a half. I guess it really just depends on your desired texture.

The rest is pretty quick simple; just chop and mix according to the recipe! (Ooh and bake the chickpeas for some crunch!)

On a similar flavor train, we also tried out this recipe last week:

Cooking my own chickpeas was much more time-intensive than I had thought, but not enough to make me want to go back to buying the canned version. There are so many other ways to flavor roasted chickpeas that I’d want to try in the future (like honey cinnamon!), but for now that is all! Chickpeace out.