I found a bag of dry chickpeas in the bottom of my container of "extras" and remembered you can use these for hummus etc after soaking. So I've soaked them overnight and they've plumped up nicely but now what?

Do I need to cook them first and soften them up so they are like the ones in the tins? If so, how long for?

If I have a surplus can I freeze them now they are plumped up or do I cook first?

And lastly, has anyone successfully roasted chickpeas for a tasty snack? Found a recipe with cumin, coriander and a dried herb which sounded OK but not sure if I need to cook the peas to soften first. Also interested whether they stay crunchy or just go a bit blah after a couple of days.

All advice gratefully received

If you want to make falafel you use them uncooked, for hummus you cook them first. They freeze really well and I usually cook a large quantity and freeze them in suitable portions for hummus, salads etc. I have never roasted them so can’t comment.

Chris is right. I would add to that good advice that you should bear in mind that the older a dried pulse is the longer it needs to soak and to cook.

Chick peas are very forgiving, so don't worry about overcooking them. I normally soak for 24 hours, change the water once if I think of it, then simmer in fresh water with some salt for at least an hour, up to 2 hours.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/28/2020 10:01AM by TPANDAV.

Tpandav do you add salt to the cooking water? I was on the understanding that salt toughened them and you shouldn't salt until you make the hummus.
Thoughts?

Helen, I believed for decades that salt toughened the skins of legumes. However after reading Saman Nosrat's wonderful book "Salt, Fire, Acid, Heat", in which she goes into the science of salt in cooking, I tried out adding salt to the cooking water for dried and semi-dried legumes, and to my surprise they cooked in a shorter time in salted water. About a tablespoonful of pure salt to two litres of water. I still find it slightly weird.

The thing that retards the softening of dried legumes is acid. This is handy to know when cooking semi-dried beans as they are much less likely to collapse when simmered in a tomato based sauce or other acidic liquid e.g. a white wine and olive oil sauce.

I've also found a bag of dried chickpeas buried in my pantry. I've never made hummus before but having been underwhelmed by what's available commercially have scoured Google for the most promising looking recipe and bookmarked this one: [cookieandkate.com] She uses canned or already cooked chickpeas and cooks them again, adding baking soda, not salt, which breaks them down further; referring to this site: [food52.com] for instructions on how to cook them from scratch. I plan on soaking them tomorrow. Will be interested to hear about your results Cantabcook.
Lynne2

Thanks everyone. They would have soaked for over 24 hours now so I've removed them from the water. I will try cooking them tomorrow in some salted water and go from there. One batch for hummus, one batch for the freezer and then I'll attempt a roasted version! Fingers crossed.

Lynne2 I make a version of the hummus recipe on this site (which I just noticed has notes on the dried chickpeas lol). I use more cumin (1 tspn) and less tahini (1 tbspn) and one tin of drained chickpeas.

We have a few variations of hummus here and I personally like this Creamy Hummus the best.
While hummus is typically eaten cold, for something different and winter friendly try this Warm Hummus it is so good.
Pumpkin hummus is delicious as are our recipes for Rocket hummus or edamame hummus.

We make lots of hummus around here.

I salt at the start of cooking too.. newly as of about 2 years ago. I was very hesitant at first, but really it is fine. I do it for all dried beans.

What an interesting thread! Thanks ladies for your input. I always cook a huge pot, then freeze flat in snap lock bags (Reused) in can sized portions. I also try to keep small bags of leftover roasted pumpkin and kumara for hummus in the freezer. I’ve never salted, but will try now, as it makes much more sense. Remember the acquafaba left over from cooking. It’s a great egg white replacement.

Cantabcook, I have indeed roasted chickpeas several times but was a bit disappointed in them. You roast them cooked and I found that it worked better to roast them and the roll them in whatever you wanted the coating to be as the coating tended to burn otherwise. The disappointment however was the texture - I found they stayed crisp not for a few days, but a few minutes. I thought I'd be making them all the time, especially as we're mostly vegetarian at home and I thought they'd be a great proteiny snack, but I've given up on them now. Chickpeas are great for hummus, however - much tastier than with canned ones in my opinion. I cook mine in the microwave for about 45 minutes and then freeze them in can-sized lots.

Reporting back on the roasting of chickpeas.

I used soaked but uncooked chickpeas after drying them on handee towels. Cooked on a baking paper lined tray with no oil (to dry them a little more) for about 15 minutes and then cooked for another 20 minutes or so with a splash of olive oil. Took them out at the end of cooking and tossed them with half a teaspoon each of cumin, coriander and smoked paprika. They tasted nice but were a bit hit and miss on texture. About every third one was nice and crunchy but the others were still a bit soft. Left in a bowl they didn't seem to change much in crunch over the next couple of days. I certainly wouldn't rave about them but will try again with the cooked ones next time. Those are now sitting in my freezer waiting for their next appearance!

Cantabcook, you might like to check out Jessica Gavin. She is a very qualified cook and knows a lot about the science behind it. If you put roasted chickpeas into the search bar there is a recipe with a very good explanation about the process . Just recently she did a lengthy item about cooking beans and, interestingly, she also recommends using salt. Her quick cook guide for beans is to bring them to a boil in salted water, cook for a couple of minutes and leave the beans to soak for an hour. Then you discard the soaking water and cook them in fresh water to which 1 tsp of salt has been added. Right now I have white beans and red kidney beans soaking. It will be interesting to see how they turn out because I learned never ever t o cook légumes in salted water.

I put dried Chickpeas in the slow cooker before I go to bed with plenty of cold water and salt and turn it onto low. When I get up in the morning the Chickpeas are cooked. I drain them and put them in a large zip lock plastic bag which I lie down on an oven tray and put in the freezer. When they are frozen, I stand the bag up and bash the end on the bench to separate the Chickpeas. I then have free flow frozen cooked Chickpeas. (I wonder why my phone thinks Chickpeas needs a capital letter?)

Laughter here. Your rhetorical question made me imagine a girl music band named the Chickpeas.

Thanks Penny for the slow cooker tip. I was sure they could be done that way and I'll try them that way next time (just so I don't have to watch a pot boil)!

Wonder if you could pressure cook the beans?

Artista, yes, chickpeas can be pressure cooked. There are several options and other considerations in this regard that you'd get a lot of useful informtion from googling 'pressure-cooking chickpeas'. There's a mine of information and ideas out there.

I roasted canned chick peas, done with some oil and spices. They took at least three times more to crispen than the recipe said, but they were quite bland and got eaten more for the ‘something to pick at’ than the ‘hey these are nice’. I won’t be doing them again.

Stephanie, your last comment made me laugh, about 'something to pick at rather than hey these are nice. It reminds me of the day we were having 'happy hour' and I had nothing in the way of 'ready to go' snacks to take with me to share. I did, however, have some popping corn and thought 'this'll do; it's better than nothing.' So put some on to pop. Hunting the pantry for something savoury to coat them in, I spied the Shichimi Togarashi. Sprinkled some over and thought, well if no one else likes it, at least I do. It turned out to be the biggest hit - everyone loved it and wanted to know what I'd done.