Chickpea Recipes

Chickpea Sweet Potato Buddha Bowl- this vegan Buddha bowl is easy to make. For this recipe, I’ve packed in a few of my favorite things lately: sweet potato, chickpeas, garlic-y kale and peanut sauce. I seriously can’t get enough peanut sauce these days! It’s good on everything.

Chickpea Sweet Potato Buddha Bowl-

Ingredients:

Peanut Sauce
1 Cup Of Uncooked Quinoa

1 Small Bunch Of Kale, De-bone And Chopped

2 Cloves Of Garlic

1 Cup Of Chickpeas

1 Medium Sweet Potato, Cut Into 2/3 inch Pieces

2 Tablespoons Of Olive Oil, Divided

1/2 Teaspoon Of Cumin

1/2 Teaspoon Of Paprika

Chopped Slaw Mix For Topping

Chopped Peanuts For Topping

Chopped Cilantro For Topping

Chopped Green Onion For Topping

1 Avocado, Thinly Sliced For Topping

Lime Wedges For Topping

Kosher Salt And Pepper To Taste

Directions:

Pre-heat your oven to 400 degrees F. On a baking sheet, toss together the sweet potato chunks with 1 tablespoon of olive oil, cumin, paprika, and some salt and pepper. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until tender. Optional: also toss in the chickpeas and bake them along with the sweet potato if you want them a little crispy. Otherwise, wait and add toss in the chickpeas when the sweet potato has about 5 minutes left in order to heat up the chickpeas.

Make your quinoa by combining the quinoa in a medium pot with 2 cups of water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and let simmer, stirring often, until all of the liquid has been absorbed. Set aside until ready to serve.

Make your peanut sauce and set aside.

Make the kale by heating up 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add in the garlic and let saute for about 2 minutes. Add in the kale and cook, stirring frequently, for an additional 5 minutes. Take off of heat and season with salt and pepper.

Assemble your bowls by dividing everything equally among 2 bowls. I like to start with the quinoa, kale, and sweet potato/ chickpeas and then add my toppings. You can get creative here and use whatever veggies sound good to you. I love raw cabbage for a crunch as well as avocado, peanuts, and cilantro. I also like to serve it was a lime wedge for an added bit of citrus.

Note: May substitute your favorite greens for the kale.

Peanut Sauce:

Ingredients

½ Cup Of Peanut Butter Creamy

2 Tablespoons Of Soy Sauce

1 Clove Of Garlic Minced

½ Cup Of Cream Or Water (I Like The Extra Creaminess That Milk Adds)

1 Teaspoon Of Maple Syrup

1 Tablespoon Of Lime Juice

½ Inch Of Fresh Ginger (Or 1/2 Teaspoon Of Dried Ginger)

Optional: For A Little Extra Kick, Add In 1-2 Teaspoons Of Sriracha

Directions:

Add all ingredients to a blender or food processor and blend until smooth.

You can also simply whisk everything together is you first finely mince the garlic and ginger.

What is a Buddha Bowl anyway?

I tried to find a hard and fast rule for what constitutes a “Buddha bowl” on the internet but as it turns out, the nature of a Buddha bowl is that there is no one way to describe it. They’re bowls filled with vibrant and wholesome foods that just end up going well together.

Buddha bowls seem to lean vegan or at least vegetarian and most often have a nice balance of grains, proteins, fats, and veggies. Bonus points for the more colors you manage to get in there. Overall they’re just bowls filled with stuff that is great for you and fills you up! I’m a pretty big fan.

How to make this Veggie Bowl:

There a good few steps to this recipe but they’re all quick and easy, I promise 🙂

First up: get your quinoa cooking. I’m a HUGE fan of making quinoa in my instant pot. Otherwise, follow the package directions.

Next we’ll roast our sweet potato. IF YOU WANT you can also throw the chickpeas onto the tray to make them a bit crunchy. I really like my chickpeas soft but if crunch chickpeas are more your thing then you can bake them along with the sweet potatoes for the same amount of time.

Simply toss the sweet potato (and chickpeas if desired) in a little olive oil, salt, and pepper and then roast them for 20-25 minutes or until tender. What i do is toss the chickpeas in for the last 5 minutes simply to heat them up.

The peanut sauce comes together according to directions. Simple and delicious!

Finally we’ll make the garlic-y kale by sautéing our kale (Or Greens of Choice) with olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic. So good!

Chickpea Crunchies

Ingredients

1 Cup Of Panko Bread Crumbs

15 Ounce Can Of Chickpeas (Do Not Discard Liquid!)

½ Cup Of Oat Flour*

1 Tablespoon Of Flax-Seed Meal

½ Teaspoon Of Garlic Powder

1 Teaspoon Of Adobo Seasoning**

Directions:

Start by toasting your bread crumbs. Pre-heat your oven to 375 degrees F and line a large baking tray with parchment paper. Spread the bread crumbs out in an even layer and toast for 3 minutes. Toss well, spread even again, and toast for another 2-4 minutes. You’ll want to watch them closely as they can go from browned to burned rather quickly. Once done, place in a shallow bowl and set aside.

Drain the liquid of your chickpea can into a bowl and set aside.

In a small bowl, mix together 2 tablespoons of the chickpea liquid with 1 tablespoon of flax-seed meal. Let sit for 5 minutes to thicken.

In the bowl of a food processor, add the chickpeas, oat flour, garlic powder, the flax-seed meal mixture, and adobo seasoning (or salt and pepper if using those instead). Process until fully combined. Taking about 1 1/2 tablespoons of the chickpea dough, form nuggets. I found it easiest to pat them into ~1/3 inch thick rectangles and then gently round the edges to get a more classic nugget look.

One at a time, dip the nuggets into the chickpea liquid so that it’s fully submerged and then roll it in the breadcrumbs. Very gently press the panko into the nuggets so that it sticks better.

Place the nuggets on your baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes.

Notes:

*if you don’t have oat flour, you can simply blend about 2/3 cup of oats in a food processor until it’s a fine flour texture. Measure out 1/2 cup of the flour for this recipe.

**if you do not have Adobo seasoning, you can simple replace it with 1 teaspoon of Kosher salt and 1/2 teaspoon of ground black pepper

Vegetable Hash

2 Tablespoons Olive Oil

15 Ounce Can Chickpeas, Rinsed, Drained And Patted Dry Of Moisture

4 Cups Potatoes, Chopped (I Left The Skin On Mine)

1 Cup Zucchini, Chopped

1 Cup Sweet Onion, Chopped

1 Medium Red Bell Pepper, Chopped

½ Cup Baby Bella Mushrooms, Thinly Sliced

2 Cups Kale, Chopped (Or Favorite Greens)

2 Large Cloves Garlic, Minced

½ Teaspoon Smoked Paprika

1/2 Teaspoon Cumin

Kosher Salt And Pepper To Taste

In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium heat.

Add in the potatoes and onion and cook until the potatoes begin to soften and brown just a bit, about 6 minutes. Stir in the zucchini, pepper, garlic, mushrooms, paprika, cumin, and salt and pepper. Cook 4 additional minutes until the excess moisture of the mushrooms has mostly cooked out.

Stir in the kale and chickpeas and continue to cook, stirring often, until the kale has wilted and the chickpeas are heated through.

Season with additional salt and pepper to taste.