22 Easy Chickpea Recipes

Got garbanzo beans? Check out these easy chickpea recipes! With hummus, salads, curries, and more, you're sure to find something you love.

Confession: I love chickpea recipes so much that I almost named this blog “Chickpea Chick.” In retrospect, I’m glad I went in a different direction, but chickpeas are still one of my all-time favorite foods. For starters, they’re healthy, delicious, and packed with plant-based protein, but they’re versatile, too. They can blend into creamy, lemony hummus, bake into crispy, herb-flecked falafel, add protein to a salad, crunch to a grain bowl, and so much more!

Below, you’ll find 22 of my favorite chickpea recipes. They include garbanzo bean basics like roasted chickpeas and hummus, inventive entrées, and everything in between. Because I always have chickpeas in my pantry, these are some of the recipes I cook most often at home. Whether you’re already a chickpea fanatic or are cooking them for the first time, I hope that a few of these recipes make it into your regular rotation too!

Essential Chickpea Recipes

Crispy Roasted Chickpeas
They’re salty, they’re crunchy, and they’re so darn easy to make! Sprinkle them over a salad, top them onto a bowl, or eat them straight off the sheet pan as a protein-packed snack.

Hummus
No list of chickpea recipes could be complete without hummus. You only need 6 ingredients and 5 minutes to make it, so pass the pita chips, please!

Salad and Bowl Chickpea Recipes

Mediterranean Chickpea Salad
Medjool dates and honey goat cheese add sweet notes to this mix of roasted red peppers, fresh veggies, herbs, and chickpeas. A cumin-spiced dressing ties it all together.

Caesar Salad
There’s so much to love about this lightened-up Caesar salad recipe! Along with the Caesar salad essentials – romaine lettuce, Parmesan, and plenty of croutons – it features a creamy Greek yogurt dressing, crisp radishes, and roasted chickpeas for extra crunch.

Easy Pasta Salad
Toasted pine nuts, feta cheese, and chickpeas make this picnic-perfect pasta salad hearty enough to pass as a main or side dish. If you make it ahead of time, save a handful of fresh basil to add at the last minute.

Kale Salad with Carrot Ginger Dressing
Meet the ultimate lunch salad! Rainbow veggies and a vibrant carrot ginger dressing make it fresh and fun to eat, while toasted seeds, avocado, and crispy roasted chickpeas guarantee that it’ll keep you full till dinnertime.

Roasted Veggie Grain Bowl
I could eat this mean green grain bowl every night of the week! Chickpeas and quinoa fill it with plant-based protein, kale pesto adds richness, and sauerkraut gives it a bright pop of flavor. I love the combination of roasted cauliflower, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and parsnips pictured above, but almost any veggie would work here. Use what you have on hand!

Simple Sweet Potato Quinoa Bowl
This simple grain bowl is what I make for lunch or dinner when no one’s looking. It’s a healthy, humble mix of ingredients I nearly always have in my pantry: chickpeas, quinoa, greens, and sweet potatoes. Just add sea salt, olive oil, and a big squeeze of lemon juice to transform them into a bright, flavorful meal.

Sandwiches, Wraps, and Veggie Burgers

Chickpea Shawarma Wraps
I love these wraps so much that I’ve even eaten them for breakfast! They’re stuffed full of shawarma spiced chickpeas, spicy zhoug, creamy yogurt sauce, pickled onions, and as many fresh veggies as can fit.

Chickpea Salad Sandwiches
Jack kindly dubbed this hearty vegan sandwich a pan bag-not. It has everything that makes a classic pan bagnat so crave-able – soft baguette, briny flavor, and lots of crisp veggies – but a creamy, no-mayo chickpea salad steps in for the tuna.

Crispy Baked Falafel
Crispy, rich, and packed with fresh herbs, this homemade falafel is just as good as any you’d find at a Middle Eastern restaurant. Serve it with pita, veggies, tahini sauce, and pickled red onions to take it over the top.  Note: Of all the chickpeas recipes on the blog, this is the only one that requires dried – NOT canned – chickpeas. Do not make this recipe with canned chickpeas, or your falafel will be mushy.

Chickpea Harissa Veggie Burgers, page 173 of Love and Lemons Every Day
Walnuts, garbanzo beans, and brown rice give these smoky, savory veggie burgers their hearty texture. Pile them onto buns with creamy cilantro sauce and your favorite fixings, and dig in!

Soup and Curry Chickpea Recipes

Parsnip Chickpea Noodle Soup, page 97 of Love and Lemons Every Day
Since chickpeas are my chicken, I turn to this recipe anytime I’m craving the comfort of chicken noodle soup. Filled with veggies, herbs, and spices, it’s warming, healing, and nourishing.

Creamy Tomato Soup
There aren’t any nuts or dairy hiding inside this creamy tomato soup. Instead, blended chickpeas give it its rich, luscious texture!

Many-Veggie Vegetable Soup
Make this flexible soup to use up whatever veggies you have on hand. Stray carrots? Toss them in! A handful of spinach? Add it! Because I always have chickpeas in my pantry, I call for them here, but white beans or French green lentils would work well too.

Sunshine Sweet Potato Curry, page 193 of Love and Lemons Every Day
There’s more to this curry than meets the eye. Its creamy, aromatic sauce gets its velvety texture and sunny color from a secret ingredient – blended sweet potato!

Chana Masala
If you’re a garbanzo bean fan, chana masala is a dish that needs to be in your repertoire. My simplified version of this chickpea and tomato curry cooks up in 30 minutes flat. Served with a side of warm rice, it’s a satisfying, flavorful weeknight dinner.

Entrée Chickpea Recipes

Acorn Squash with Chickpeas and Chimichurri
A cinnamon-spiced chickpea filling brings out the acorn squash’s sweetness in this hearty vegetarian main dish. For a zesty contrast, top it with bright chimichurri and lemony yogurt sauce.

Baked Feta
Tangy feta cheese melts into an aromatic mixture of marinara sauce, cumin, chickpeas, and kale in this simple weeknight recipe. Dive in with a fork, or, better yet, serve it with naan, pita, or crusty bread for scooping up the warm sauce and cheese.

Turmeric Cauliflower Fried Rice
This curry-spiced cauliflower rice checks all the weeknight-friendly boxes: it’s easy to make, it requires minimal ingredients, and it’s far more than the sum of its parts. Chickpeas give it heft, toasted cashews add crunch, and lime and curry spices fill it with warm, bright flavor.

Orecchiette Pasta
You could make a thousand variations on this easy pasta recipe, and it would come out delicious every time. Finish it with vegan Parmesan or the real thing, add a splash of white wine or a squeeze of lemon, swap the veggies, or top it with pesto. Pasta + chickpeas are a fantastic blank canvas, and you really can’t go wrong.

Stuffed Sweet Potatoes
If you have a sweet potato and a can of chickpeas in your kitchen, you’re well on your way to making a delicious dinner. Bake the sweet potato, spice up the chickpeas, and mix them with any veggies or herbs you have on hand. When the sweet potato’s tender, stuff it with the chickpea filling, and enjoy!

More Pantry Essentials

If you love these garbanzo bean recipes, check out these pantry-friendly recipe round ups next:

• 30+ Healthy Pantry Recipes
• 25 Best Bean Recipes
• Healthy Freezer Meals
• 25 Healthy Rice Recipes
• 50 Easy Dinner Ideas
• 25 Super Fun Baking Recipes

Chickpea Recipes: Best Chickpea Salad

rate this recipe:

5 from 25 votes

Prep Time: 20 mins

Total Time: 2 mins

Serves 4 to 6

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This Mediterranean chickpea salad is one of our favorite chickpea recipes!

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 tablespoon lemon zest
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 3/4 teaspoon sea salt
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 1 ½ teaspoon cumin seeds*
• 2 cups cooked chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
• 4 Medjool dates, pitted and diced
• 3 Persian cucumbers, sliced into thin half moons
• ⅓ cup chopped roasted red peppers
• ¼ cup finely chopped parsley
• 3 ounces goat cheese
• ¼ cup fresh mint
• ⅓ cup roasted chickpeas, optional

Instructions

• In a large bowl, combine the olive oil, garlic, lemon zest, lemon juice, salt, and several grinds of pepper.
• In a small skillet over medium-low heat, toast the cumin seeds until aromatic, about 30 seconds. Remove from the heat and crush them a bit (a mortar & pestle is easiest for this). Add them to the bowl and stir.
• Add the chickpeas, tomatoes, dates, cucumbers, red pepper, and parsley to the bowl and toss. Transfer to a serving platter and dollop with the goat cheese, sprinkle with mint, and top with the extra roasted chickpeas, if desired. Season to taste and serve.

Notes

*if using ground cumin, use a heaping 1/2 teaspoon and add it directly to the mixing bowl, no need to toast.