Tips and tricks for cooking chickpeas

Chickpeas are one of those ingredients you either aren’t yet au fait with or simply can’t live without. Whether you love them dried or canned, having a steady supply of these hearty legumes in your pantry will ensure the possibility of impromptu salads, roasts, snacks or dips, ready and waiting at your fingertips. Here’s our top stash on cooking chickpeas.

Dried vs tinned, what’s the difference?

To many people, canned chickpeas are the only way they’ve ever eaten them, and here convenience wins hands down. Canned chickpeas absorb more moisture due to their being preserved in brine and can therefore live in your cupboard until the urge to eat them takes you. They have delicate flavour (but a higher sodium content) and lend well to being blitzed quickly into a hummus with any flavour infusion of your choice. Dried chickpeas require a little more prep, but you can buy them in bulk at a better price, and we hear these pack a slightly more nutritious punch too. The dried variety doesn’t spend nearly as much time in water or brine and therefore result in a far crispier result when roasted. Many also say the hummus resulting from dried, soaked chickpeas is of a delicious buttery consistency and not unlike that served up in Mediterranean restaurants. So a little prep can have a lot of reward, but if you’re in a pinch, canned works just fine too.

Some inspiration on what to do with chickpeas

Roast them, toast them
A roasted chickpea, also known as a garbanzo bean, is a marvellous thing. You can coat them in any spice variety you like and either fry them in a pan with some butter or pop them in the oven for a toasty, flavourful snack or addition to any salad. We used cayenne pepper, cumin seeds and nigella seeds for spicy roast chickpeas in a fresh and flavourful salad.

Dress them up
Chickpeas can also be quickly adorned in a drizzle of oils and herbs and used as is in a zesty salad. Head this way to make a chickpea, chilli and mint salad or enjoy chickpeas in a coriander herb salad as a braai side dish.

Blitz them
Turning chickpeas into a dip unveils the wonderful world of hummus. Whether you roast them and then blitz them into a buttery spread or make traditional hummus with tahini, a chickpea dip should definitely become a staple on your summer tapas board and makes a great base for more elaborate red pepper or chilli dips.

Swopping chickpea stories

We’re not the only ones who love chickpeas so much — here are a bunch of tips and tricks shared by our online community. A few favourites:

• Chickpea curry | Fried onions, garlic and ginger, good garam masala, tinned chickpeas, whatever veggies are in the fridge or freezer, and a dash of coconut milk. Quick and healthy! (Jonica Brown)
• Flourless chocolate cake | A gluten free option made with ground chickpeas, egg and chocolate! (Jonica Brown)
• Chickpea & butternut | Chickpeas with mashed butternut (cooked in veg stock) on pasta with some blue cheese (Elizabeth Nortjé)
• Slowcooked chickpeas | Rather than soaking them overnight and then boiling them for a couple of hours the next day, cook chickpeas painlessly by placing them in a slow cooker (on high) overnight. Unlike red kidney beans, there is no danger in not soaking them first. (Brenda Schmahmann)

We’re endlessly grateful for your generosity and are thrilled that we’ll never have to worry about running out of a good chickpea recipe ever again. Hoorah.