Let's talk chickpeas

[Wereongunoil]

I love hummus so the flavour of chickpeas isn't a problem but I really can't them stand whole, it's the texture 😵‍💫

But.....

I see loads of recipes with chickpeas as a main ingredient or roasted. I can substitute other beans when they're in a meal type recipe but what's the best bean to use in these, coat in spices and roast recipes

I think you could probably substitute any bean you like. This article suggests white beans roast well.

https://www.epicurious.com/ingredients/how-to-make-crispy-white-beans-oven-roasted-article

I’ve got a great recipe for butter bean falafel, so I would think butter beans are pretty interchangeable with chickpeas

Thanks. I'll try a few different types and see how they come out I think

I quite like a pinto bean and often use them when out of chickpeas

I use all sorts of pulses/beans in my recipes, not necessarily what’s on the recipe, just what I’ve got in the cupboard!

Ummm... The texture of a roasted chickpea is entirely different to an unrelated one, it's more like a nut. Have you tried roasting a few to see how you get on?

Ful medames would be great roasted like that.

Imho home cooked chickpeas are such a different texture from tinned.

This is an incredible recipe - roasted chickpeas, potatoes and houmous. I do it with posh shop-bought houmous and omit the cauliflower and double the potatoes because I am a pig. The method for roasting the chickpeas could be used with almost any other mix of spices/flavourings, so you could make them french and garlicky for example and serve with garlic mayo and roasted fennel and asparagus.

My favourite bean is pinto actually.
I haven't tried them roasted @LordEmsworth it's just the thought of them. It's like thinking about chalk on a blackboard.

I may try roasting pinto beans

I don't particularly like chickpeas by themselves, so I totally understand where you're coming from. And for example, I can't stand falafel - it's a texture thing though, not the taste!

However, I used tinned or jarred chickpeas in other recipes and find the additional cooking makes the texture less unpleasant for me. Eg I'll add a tin of chickpeas to a lamb stew for the last 30 minutes of cooking. Or I do a roasted carrot with rice pilaf style dish and add chickpeas to the rice.

Roasted chickpeas are very different to raw ones. I quite like them. It's worth trying. I do them as a snack in the air fryer occasionally with oil, salt and cumin.

Sometimes the texture issues with chickpeas is because they have thin, transparent “skin”. You can pop the cooked chickpeas out of the “skin” which is time consuming but might help with the texture.