How to Cook Chickpeas and Chickpea Salad Recipe

 

I’ve always bought canned chickpeas aka garbonzo beans but decided to be adventurous and get dried beans. Typically you would soak the beans in water overnight but I discovered a quicker way to prepare them that doesn’t take several hours.

Quick Soaking Chickpeas

Time: 3 hours

1. Pour the beans out onto a flat surface and sort through them, looking for any rocks and other debris and remove them. 
2. Put the beans in a large pot and cover with a couple of inches of water. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes.
3. Remove the pot of beans from the heat and cover and let soak for 1 hour.
4. Drain the beans in a colander and rinse with cold water.
5. Put the beans back into the pot and cover with another couple of inches of cold water. Bring to a boil then reduce heat, cover and let simmer for 1 hour.
6. Remove from heat and stir in a bit of salt if you’d like. Let sit for 30 minutes.
7. Drain and they are ready to enjoy! You may store in the fridge for a few days or in the freezer for a few months.

I’ve always only made hummus with chickpeas and it was the first thing I made after trying this quick soaking method but I came across a recipe for Zucchini Chickpea Quinoa Salad in my Facebook newsfeed posted by A Cedar Spoon. I just happened to have all the ingredients for it too. Love when I come across recipes that I don’t have to go out and buy a bunch of stuff for. I even had quinoa in the fridge already cooked. I actually thought I was out of zucchini and had planned on using cucumber in its place but low and behold I found a zucchini waiting to be eaten. I did however make a couple of minor alterations to the original recipe. I added some chopped red bell pepper and I thought it could use a little acid so added some apple cider vinegar. Lemon juice would probably work well with the recipe too.

Recipe: Chickpea Salad

Adapted from: A Cedar Spoon’s Zucchini Chickpea Quinoa Salad
Yield: 4 servings
Total time: 20 minutes

INGREDIENTS:
1.5 Cups cooked or canned chickpeas
1.5 Cups cooked quinoa
1 medium zucchini, cubed
2 green onions, chopped
1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped
1/2 red bell pepper, chopped
salt & pepper, to taste

DRESSING INGREDIENTS: 
4 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar or lemon juice
1.5 tsp cumin
1.5 tsp tumeric
1 tsp paprika

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Mix first 6 ingredients together in a medium sized bowl.

2. In a small bowl, whisk the dressing ingredients together.

3. Add dressing to the bowl of vegetables and quinoa and stir together until well mixed.

4. Add salt and pepper to taste.