Roasted Chickpea (Garbanzo) Appetizer or Snack

Roasted Chickpeas Ready to Share

 Recipe by Bruce and UC’s Living Well Program

My second favorite perk of the jobs at University of California is their Living Well program. Once per year employees can take an online health assessment and receive suggestions for setting and achieving health goals, plus get a gift card. My husband took the assessment recently, and received some menus for healthy snacks, among other things. One recipe was for Roasted Chickpeas, which he zapped up with added spices and served at our African inspired dinner party last week.  The idea is to cook the chickpeas till they’re crispy.

Chickpeas & Mixed Spices

The recipe was written for no-salt canned chickpeas (garbanzo beans), but it’s easy to cook your own chickpeas. If you have a couple of extra hours, or can cook the beans the night before you roast them, you’ll save yourself some money.

Instead of using the oven, you can also reduce your carbon footprint by making these in a small convection/toaster oven in two batches. In either case, use a no-stick spray like Pam on the cookie sheet or baking tray, and clean up will be a whole lot easier. We discovered this the hard way. Do use a baking sheet with sides, so you won’t lose any beans when you stir them.

Grey salt is an unrefined sea salt produced in Europe. It has more complex flavor than regular table salt or refined sea salt. Of course, you can adjust the spicing to your liking.

Hot from the Oven

Roasted Chickpea Appetizer or Snack

serves about 6

1 - 29 oz. (large) can unsalted chickpeas, or 3 ½ cups cooked chickpeas

¼ tsp. onion powder

¼ tsp. garlic powder

½ tsp. no-salt Spike or other seasoned un-salt

½ tsp. cayenne pepper powder

1 tsp. grey salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Drain and rinse chickpeas if using canned. For fresh or canned chickpeas: drain off as much water as possible.

Spray cookie sheet with raised edges or toaster oven tray (with edges) with no-stick spray.

Put drained chickpeas on cookie sheet.

Grind grey salt with mortar and pestle till fine. Put in small bowl and mix with onion powder, garlic powder, Spike, and cayenne. Sprinkle seasoning over chickpeas.

Put chickpeas in oven and bake until browned, dry and crisp. This will take about 45 minutes, maybe more. Use the following procedure: Check them at 15 minutes, stir around to cook all sides. Check and stir again at 30 minutes. Check and stir again at 40 minutes. Test for doneness. Continue checking them every 5 – 10 minutes until they are crisp to the center. If the outside is browning too fast and inside is done, you can lower the heat to 325 degrees F.

One serving is 1/2 cup, and contains 130 calories and 6.7 grams of protein, 4.6 grams of fiber, and .7 gram of fat.

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