If you don’t know how to cook chickpeas from dry or you’re looking for a tasty way to use up that jar of dried chickpeas in your pantry, this easy vegan recipe is for you! I’ll show you how to transform these protein-rich dried beans into a tender and flavorful meal with step by step instructions and tips.
Cooking chickpeas from scratch is a kitchen task many find highly intimidating, but once you’ve decided to soak those beans and cook them, the only challenging factor is time. And it is so worth the time! Having a few jars of beautifully cooked chickpeas in the refrigerator or freezer at the start of the week is a great way to ensure you have several delicious and nutritious meals ahead of you.
Once you’ve cooked a pot of bean for the first time, you’ll realize how simple it is and how many different ways you can customize the flavors to suit your tastes and needs. You could use this recipe as a base and add whatever ingredients strike your fancy, or you can eliminate the strong flavors altogether so you can use the cooked chickpeas just as you would canned- as a blank canvas for any and all chickpea recipes.
What you’ll need for this recipe
These are the ingredients you’ll need to create this recipe as written. Keep reading for information about each ingredient as well as substitution options where applicable.
Ingredient notes
- Dried chickpeas: This recipe is for cooking chickpeas from the dried bean itself. It does not use canned pre-cooked chickpeas. Canned beans are a convenient and often delicious kitchen staple, but beans cooked from dry are a superior dish that can be customized to your exact preferences. Think jarred pasta sauce vs your family’s tried and true marinara. You could substitute white beans in this recipe.
- Garlic cloves: I love a good garlicky… well, anything. The garlic cloves are peeled before being added to the pot, and they soften up delightfully as they cook. If you don’t want a whole mouthful of garlic, fish them out and mash them up with a little bit of the broth before stirring back into the pot. You could also use the garlic cloves and some of the chickpeas to make a hummus later.
- Fresh herbs: Lovely fresh herbs like rosemary, thyme, or oregano create an aromatic and flavorful broth for the chickpeas. Use one or all of the herbs I listed, or use another favorite (though I wouldn’t recommend “wet” herbs like parsley, cilantro, or dill here unless you finely chop them and stir them into the cooked beans at the end). If you’d like to season your chickpeas with dried herbs instead, you can add around 1-2 tsp of dried herbs toward the end of cooking.
- Lemon: Fresh slices of lemon help infuse the beans with a deep citrus flavor, while a little extra lemon juice at the end adds even more brightness to the final dish.
- Olive Oil: This is an optional ingredient if you don’t prefer to cook with much oil, but a drizzle of good olive oil helps make the chickpea broth silky smooth and flavorful. You can absolutely leave it out or add a bit of oil to individual servings instead.
How to cook dried beans
Cooking beans from scratch is as easy as soaking, rinsing, boiling, and simmering. Let’s check out the steps in more detail!
- Soak your beans: I know this can be a pain to remember, but if you remember to do it, soaking dried beans for at least 8 hours really does help! See my FAQ section below for more info on this. I like to wash my beans with water first, then drain that and 2 quarts of fresh water to soak them in overnight.
- Rinse your beans: Be sure to drain and rinse your beans after soaking, then and add them to a large cooking pot with fresh water.
- Prepare your aromatics: For this recipe, I’m flavoring my chickpeas with fresh garlic cloves, which I’ll crush and peel, as well as a few fresh herbs. It’s helpful to use kitchen twine to tie the fresh herbs into a neat little bundle. This way they can infuse the dish with their delicious flavor but you won’t have distracting pieces of rosemary or thyme stems in your beans. Toss the garlic cloves and the bundle of herbs into the pot with the beans and water.
- Add your other ingredients: Cut several thin slices from a large lemon and add them to the pot. Save the rest of the lemon for later. Add your salt, black pepper, and olive oil as well.
- Bring to a boil: Stir everything together and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to low and cover.
- Cook until tender: This can take between 60-90 minutes, depending on how long you soaked the beans and how long they’ve been stored. See my FAQ section below if you struggle with tough beans.
- Serve and enjoy: Once the beans are tender, you are ready to serve them up! I rarely miss the opportunity to eat a bowl of freshly cooked brothy beans when I make them this way- I like to top them with a little flaky salt, red pepper flakes, and vegan parmesan. A slice of crusty bread on the side certainly wouldn’t hurt either.
- Store leftovers: The cooked chickpeas can be stored in a tightly sealed container for 5-6 days in the refrigerator or 6-8 weeks in the freezer.
Frequently Asked Questions
Short answer: no, you don’t have to soak your beans. Longer answer: try to remember to soak them because the cook time will be significantly reduced and your cooked beans will be easier to digest.
This bean would be great with white beans! You could also flavor lentils this way, keeping in mind that the cook time would be a lot shorter.
You may just need to keep cooking them longer than you expected. The type of pan you use, how long you let the beans boil before turning down the heat, and whether or not you covered them while simmering are all factors that can affect cook time. However, if you’ve purchased beans that were stored for a long time (or if you kept them in your pantry for awhile before cooking them), they may just be slightly stale. When this happens to me, I generally turn the whole pot of beans into a hummus or blended soup. Try to buy your dried beans from a retailer that sells lots of beans so you know they’re fresh!
Yes! You can freeze cooked chickpeas in their liquid, ideally in a plastic deli container or in a sturdy wide mouth glass jar that isn’t filled all the way. Label them and try to use in a few months.
Thank. you for reading today’s post! I so appreciate you taking the time to stop by and check out my recipe. Find me on Instagram so we can connect- I love to see when my readers tag me in their remakes of my recipes 🙂 xo Jillian
If you liked this recipe, check out these similar recipes from the blog!
Easy Herby Lemon Garlic Chickpeas
If you don’t know how to cook chickpeas from dry or you’re looking for a tasty way to use up that jar of chickpeas in your pantry, this recipe is for you! I’ll show you how to transform these protein-rich dried beans into a tender and flavorful meal with step by step instructions and tips.
Ingredients
- 1 lb dry chickpeas
- 2 quarts water
- 3/4 tbsp salt
- 5 garlic cloves
- bundle of 6–8 sprigs herbs of choice (I used rosemary, thyme, and oregano), tied with kitchen twine*
- 3 lemon slices
- several cracks of black pepper
- a drizzle of olive oil (around 1-2 tbsp)
- more lemon juice
Instructions
- If you remembered to soak your beans overnight, drain them and rinse them well. Otherwise, add the beans to your pot along with the water, salt, herb bundle, lemon slices, black pepper, and olive oil.
- On the stovetop, turn the heat to high and bring the pot of chickpeas to a boil. Cover and reduce heat to low or medium-low in order to maintain a steady simmer.
- Cook for 60-90 minutes or longer if needed, until the chickpeas are very tender.
- Taste and add the extra lemon juice and salt if desired.
- Discard the herb bundle and the lemon slices. Discard the garlic cloves, leave them as is, or remove them and smash them with a fork before stirring back into the pot.
Notes
*if you don’t have kitchen twine, you can leave the herbs loose and pick them out later.
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