Nine Chickpea Recipes Worth Making
Nine things to make with a pot of chickpeas, from the kitchens of three Mississippi restaurants that go through them every week.
Start here
Everything below assumes you have cooked chickpeas on hand. If you are starting from a bag of dried ones, read how to cook chickpeas from dried first — the texture you cook them to determines which of these recipes will work. Canned chickpeas are fine for most of what follows, with one significant exception noted below.
A note on oil before we start. Most of these recipes use olive oil, and in a dish with four ingredients the oil is not a background element — it is one quarter of the flavor. We use Glory Bound Extra Virgin Olive Oil in our kitchens, and it is what we would use in every recipe here that calls for olive oil unless we say otherwise. The full range is in the olive oil collection.
1. Hummus
The reason to cook chickpeas in the first place.
Combine roughly two cups of cooked chickpeas with a third of a cup of tahini, the juice of one to two lemons, one small garlic clove, and a good pinch of salt. Process until it looks done, then keep going for another two minutes — this is the step almost everyone stops short on. With the processor running, stream in cold reserved chickpea cooking liquid a tablespoon at a time until the texture turns pale and loose. It will look too thin in the bowl. It will set up as it rests.
Finish with olive oil poured over the top, not blended in. Blended oil disappears; poured oil is the first thing you taste.
Three things that separate good hummus from average hummus: the chickpeas must be cooked past tender to the point of collapse, the tahini must be fresh and well-stirred, and the whole thing must be processed far longer than feels reasonable.
This is the only recipe here where canned chickpeas will noticeably hold you back. Canned are cooked to stay intact, and intact is the opposite of what hummus needs.
2. Roasted chickpeas
Drain and dry the chickpeas thoroughly — a wet chickpea steams rather than roasts, and this is the whole game. Spread them on a towel and let them sit for fifteen minutes if you have the patience.
Toss with olive oil and salt, spread on a sheet pan in a single layer, and roast at 400°F for 25 to 35 minutes, shaking the pan twice. They are done when they rattle and sound hollow.
Season after roasting, not before. Ground spices burn over 25 minutes at 400°F and turn bitter. Toss the hot chickpeas with smoked paprika and cumin, or with za'atar, or with just black pepper and flaky salt.
They are crisp for about four hours and then they soften. This is a make-and-eat food, not a make-ahead one.
3. Falafel
The one recipe here that requires uncooked chickpeas, and the rule is absolute: soaked but raw. Cooked chickpeas contain too much water and produce falafel that disintegrates in the fryer. Every failed batch of homemade falafel traces back to this.
Soak dried chickpeas overnight, drain them well, and grind them raw with plenty of parsley, cilantro, onion, garlic, cumin, and coriander until the mixture resembles coarse wet sand. Rest it in the refrigerator for an hour. Form into balls or patties and fry at 350°F until deep brown.
We make falafel daily and it remains the item that punishes shortcuts most reliably.
4. Chickpea salad with lemon and herbs
Cooked chickpeas, diced cucumber, halved cherry tomatoes, thinly sliced red onion, chopped parsley, crumbled feta. Dress with olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and oregano.
Dress it at least twenty minutes before serving. Chickpeas are absorbent and bland, and they need time to take on the dressing. A chickpea salad dressed and served immediately tastes like separate ingredients sharing a bowl. The same salad thirty minutes later tastes like a dish.
This keeps for two days and improves on the first one.
5. Chickpea stew with tomato and greens
Soften onion and garlic in olive oil. Add cumin and smoked paprika and let them bloom in the oil for thirty seconds. Add crushed tomatoes and cooked chickpeas, plus a cup of the chickpea cooking liquid. Simmer twenty minutes, then stir in a large handful of spinach or chopped kale and cook until just wilted.
Finish with lemon juice and a pour of olive oil off the heat. The acid at the end is what keeps it from tasting heavy.
6. Crushed chickpeas on toast
Warm chickpeas in olive oil with a smashed garlic clove. Crush them roughly with a fork — you want texture, not purée. Season with salt, lemon, and chili flakes. Pile onto grilled bread rubbed with a cut garlic clove.
Ten minutes, four ingredients, and it eats like a real meal. This is the recipe where the quality of the oil is most exposed, because there is nothing else to hide behind. Our Garlic Infused Olive Oil is a good shortcut here and skips the fresh garlic step.
7. Chickpea and grain bowl
Build on rice, farro, or couscous. Add cooked chickpeas, grilled or roasted vegetables, something pickled, something fresh, and a sauce. In our restaurants that sauce is tzatziki — cucumber, garlic, dill, and yogurt — which cuts through the starch and ties the bowl together.
The structure matters more than the specific ingredients. Grain, legume, cooked vegetable, raw element, acid, sauce. Once you internalize that you can build a bowl from whatever is in the refrigerator.
8. Chickpea flour pancakes (socca)
Not made from whole chickpeas, but worth including. Whisk one cup chickpea flour with one and a quarter cups water, three tablespoons olive oil, and a teaspoon of salt. Rest thirty minutes. Pour thin into a very hot, well-oiled cast iron pan and cook until the edges lift and the center sets.
Naturally gluten free, high in protein, and it takes about five minutes of active work. Serve with black pepper and rosemary. Our Rosemary Garlic Olive Oil handles both the batter and the finish.
9. Chickpea soup with lemon and orzo
Sweat onion, carrot, and celery in olive oil. Add stock, cooked chickpeas, and a bay leaf, and simmer fifteen minutes. Add a half cup of orzo and cook until tender. Finish with a great deal of lemon juice and chopped dill.
Purée about a third of it and stir it back in. That gives you body without cream and is the difference between a soup that tastes thin and one that tastes finished.
Why chickpeas are worth the trouble
Chickpeas run roughly 17 to 30 percent protein by dry weight, which is high for a plant food, and they carry that protein alongside substantial fiber.[1] Analysis of national dietary survey data found that people who regularly eat chickpeas or hummus take in 24.4 grams of fiber a day compared with 10.1 grams among those who do not, and score notably higher on overall diet quality.[1]
One detail worth knowing if you are watching blood sugar: hummus has a glycemic index roughly half that of chickpeas eaten on their own.[1] The fat and the acid in the preparation slow absorption. The olive oil is not only there for flavor.
The same research put hummus at a nutrient-density score of 98.42, against 23.02 for ranch dressing and 41.86 for cream cheese.[1] When we put a hummus trio on the table instead of a ranch cup, that is the trade being made.
Come eat ours
We make hummus fresh every week in Hattiesburg, Tuscaloosa, and Ocean Springs, in eight flavors, all built from the same olive oil base. If you would rather have someone else do the soaking, come see us. If you want to make it at home, start with the oil we use.