Roasted Chickpeas

While surfing different food blogs this afternoon I became very intrigued by several Roasted Chickpea recipes. They all raved about how it is such a healthy snack and loaded with lots of fiber as well as taste. I even found an article called "15 More Ways to Flavor Roasted Chickpeas". I jumped on the boat and wanted to try some myself. I had two cans of chickpeas that have been in my pantry for about a year and were dying to be used up (I bought them a long time ago wanting to make my own hummus but never got around to it).

I made two different kinds, one sweet and one salty and the recipes are posted below. I definitely favored the salty one and had fun munching on it. They say you really need to eat them up the same day or else they will lose some of their crunch the following day. Have you ever had CornNuts? That's exactly what they remind me of!





Roasted Chickpeas
Source: www.thekitchn.com

RECIPE #1
Lime Chili Cilantro Roasted Chickpeas

1 15-oz can chickpeas
3 t. chili powder
1 T. olive oil
1 T. fresh squeezed lime juice
1/2 t. sea salt
2 T cilantro, finely chopped (I omitted this because I didn't have any.)

1. Preheat oven or toaster oven to 400 degrees.

2. Drain and rinse canned chickpeas.

3. In a large bowl combine chickpeas, chili powder, and, olive oil. Toss.

4. Spread chickpeas in a single layer on lightly oiled baking sheet. Bake at 400 degrees for ABOUT 45-50* minutes, lightly shaking the pan every 15 minutes or so. They’re done when the chickpeas are lightly brown and totally crunchy.

5. Remove from oven. Let cool completely. Toss with lime juice, cilantro, and sea salt. Serve. (If you have enough left to store overnight, you’ll probably need to recrisp them about 10 minutes in the oven.)

*Note: The cooking time really seems to vary depending on whether you use dry or canned chickpeas, even on the difference in chickpeas from can to can. So when they look done, I pull one chickpea out of the over, let it cool a couple of minutes, and then test it. If it isn’t crunchy enough, I leave them in about 5 minutes. And then repeat the test. Until the chickpea is really crunchy. Then (and only then) I remove them from the oven.

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RECIPE #2
Honey Roasted Chickpeas

1 15-oz can chickpeas
1 T. sugar
1 t. cinnamon
1 t. olive oil
honey, to drizzle

I did the same thing as before, rinsed and drained the beans, put them on a cookie sheet, added 1 tablespoon of sugar, 1 tsp. of cinnamon, and 1 tsp. olive oil. This time I lowered the heat to about 325 and it took about 1 1/2 hours, stirring occassionally. Because of the sugar, I didn’t want it to burn before the chick peas roasted. You know when they are done because if you taste one it should be crunchy all the way through. If its still soft in the middle, put them back in. If you see that they are getting dark, just lower the temperature in your oven and cook them longer. Once they came out, I drizzled them with honey.