Sunday, September 30, 2012

Roasted Chickpeas

chickpeas

As usual, I have failed at a timely leap onto the bandwagon. How long have roasted chickpeas been a thing? Honestly, I don't know, because I am that terrible at the bandwagon.

I love chickpeas, so the first time I heard of roasted chickpeas, maybe a couple of years ago, I instantly thought, "I will love this snack." And yet, I never made them until this week. I'm not sure why. I had no reason to doubt that I would indeed love them. It's not like it's a particularly labor-intensive recipe. I just... didn't.

The concept's pretty simple. Drain and rinse a can of chickpeas well, dry them thoroughly, remove the skins if you like, coat with olive or canola oil and the seasoning of your choice, and roast away. Try not to eat the whole thing.

These are a great snack, definitely a healthier alternative to chips (though I'm not sure they satisfy the same cravings), but the light crunch makes it very easy to overeat and consume a whole batch in one sitting. There are two major downsides to that: you've just consumed about 500 calories of "snack," and you've just consumed about 20 grams of fiber in as many minutes. I love fiber and regularly exceed the ~30g daily recommendation (by a lot), but still... yikes. That'll getcha movin'. So portion those bad boys out into about 1/3 cup servings, and share the love.

In that serving, you'll get about 6g fiber and protein each (I'm not sure how much difference skin on/off makes in fiber content), as well as a great boost to your daily intake of B6, folate, and manganese, and if you use canola oil, nearly half of the (small amount of) fat is polyunsaturated - and we love our essential fatty acids, don't we? Yes, we do. Say it now, "We love our essential fatty acids."

Ahem. Anyway.

I haven't quite honed my technique yet, but here are a few things I've picked up. Removing the skins is optional, but they take a little longer to bake if you don't, and I think I do slightly prefer the skin-off version. It might seem tempting to make a big batch of these at once and save them, but the quality takes a pretty steep nosedive about an hour out of the oven. We had some success reviving them in the microwave, but that process also resulted in a crazy lightning storm in our microwave (twice!), possibly due to this phenomenon (or the magnetron just bit the dust), so, uh... proceed with caution.

Roasted Chickpeas
Serves 3... or possibly 1
  • One can chickpeas, rinsed, drained, (optionally) skins removed
  • 1-2 tsp olive or canola oil
  • 1/4 tsp salt (optional - I skipped it, and the beans were plenty well seasoned)
  • 1 tsp seasoning blend of your choice (make sure you note if it contains salt)
Preheat oven to 400ºF (I used 350ºF and convection). Toss beans evenly with oil, salt, and seasoning, and spread on baking sheet. Bake 30-45 minutes, until crispy and dry but not hard. Shake pan once or twice during cooking time.

Optional: practice restraint.

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