My Absolute Favorite Lunch: The Chickpea Bowl
A few important things before we begin:
I don’t like chickpeas.
I don’t care about “healthy lunches.”
I only eat things that taste, like, really good.
I eat this for lunch almost every day.
What You’ll Hit If You Scroll
The basic idea.
The non-mathematical recipe.
How to actually cook the recipe.
Cheats and preferences.
The Chickpea Bowl Cliffs Notes.
The Basic Idea
A chickpea curry type thing is in many cookbooks. I’ve seen multiple versions in all kinds of places, but this is my version, heavily simplified and Lazy Geniused for your own enjoyment and ease.
Saute aromatics (fresh ginger, garlic, shallot) in some fat.
Stir in a bunch of Indian spices and a little tomato paste to make the most incredible flavor bomb known to man.
Dump in cans of chickpeas and tomatoes.
Stir in something creamy like coconut milk, coconut cream, or heavy cream.
Simmer for maybe ten minutes.
Top it with stuff like cilantro, plain yogurt, avocado, and lime juice.
Eat with a shocked look on your face because you won’t believe how good it is.
The Non-Mathematical Recipe
Recipe Principles
If you can stir, you can make this.
You can’t mess this up.
You don’t have to measure because all of these ingredients go together in any ratio.
How Much It Makes
One big pan gives me 3-4 hearty lunches.
If you want less, cut the “recipe” in half, i.e. use fewer cans of stuff.
Ingredients You’ll Need
2-3 TBSP. OF FAT (Butter, coconut oil, olive oil, canola, ghee… literally anything works in any combo, but my personal favorite is butter and olive oil together.)
1/4 C. AROMATICS (I like equal parts garlic and ginger, and if I kept shallots around and didn’t mind chopping, I’d use those, too.)
2-ISH TBSP. INDIAN SPICES (I’ll talk more about this further down, but a good start is half cumin and half store-bought garam masala.)
1-2 TBSP. TOMATO PASTE
TWO 15-OZ CANS OF CHICKPEAS (Also called garbanzo beans. Also also drain them, please.)
TWO 15-OZ CANS OF TOMATOES (I do one of diced and one of crushed or non-seasoned sauce.)
A GLUG OR DOLLOP OF SOMETHING CREAMY (Coconut cream, coconut milk, heavy cream… anything fatty and creamy is perfect.)
TOPPINGS IF YOU WANT THEM (Cilantro is my favorite choice, and if I have whole milk Greek yogurt, that goes on, too. Avocado, lime, and fresh herbs like mint and basil also work.)
How to Actually Cook the Recipe
Remember, if you can stir, you can make this.
Gather your ingredients first, including chopping, opening cans, and rinsing beans. This puppy moves quickly.
Get the biggest skillet you own. It should be at least as big as your face.
Put the skillet on the stove over medium-high heat, and add the fat. Let it melt and start to bubble the tiniest bit. Or a big bit. Browned butter is also delicious.
Add the aromatics and stir. Stir for no more than ten Mississippi’s before moving on. Tiny garlic burns big.
Dump in the spices and stir for another 5-10 seconds. If for some reason, your pan is too dry, add more oil. The spices need to almost fry. It’s a delight. Also don’t stop stirring.
Stir in the tomato paste for another few seconds. At this point, you’ve been stirring for less than a minute, and you won’t believe the magical smells coming from so little effort. Don’t be alarmed that this looks like a paste; it’s supposed to - a flavor bomb paste.
Dump in the canned tomatoes and stir until the flavor bomb is mixed well. Then dump in the drained chickpeas, add several healthy pinches of salt, and leave it alone.
Let it gently bubble for maybe ten minutes, but five will likely be enough. No need to stir again unless you feel like the tomato on the edges looks too thick. In that case, stir and turn the heat down a bit.
Stir in something creamy, and simmer another minute.
Taste it. If it doesn’t sing and make you want to pay me money, it needs more salt. You should want to pay me money. Now you’re done.
Cheats and Preferences
You’re the boss of the food in this pan. Make choices based on what you like.
If you love fresh ginger, use more.
If you like it chunky, use all diced tomatoes.
If you like a spicier Indian situation, add some cayenne or a chopped jalapeno in with the aromatics.
If you want to add in more vegetables, do it. Diced onion and grated carrot would probably be great. Add them along with the aromatics, and add a little more fat.
I believe that chickpeas are absolutely perfect in this recipe, but if you’re strictly against them (which I personally am in all other contexts), stir in some rotisserie chicken or something. If that’s the case, I’d suggest serving it over rice or with naan. Otherwise, don’t add another carb. The Chickpea Bowl loses its power with other carbs involved for some weird reason. Trust me, I’ve tested this theory.
Let’s talk spices.
You want a tiny bowl of spices (two-ish tablespoons), and whatever combo you want will work. Use the bowl as your measurement, not fourteen measuring spoons.
Here are the spices to use in the order of most important to least important. In other words, do not use a full two tablespoons of cloves. That… that won’t be good. So in order of importance:
Cumin, coriander, cardamom, garam masala, paprika, cinnamon, turmeric, clove. For example, 1/2 tbsp. each of cumin and coriander, maybe 1 tsp each of cardamom and garam masala, 1/2 tsp. paprika, 1/4 tsp of the rest.
Basically, exact measurements are exhausting and don’t make enough of a difference to matter. Again, if you don’t want to guess, buy a jar of garam masala and do equal parts of that and cumin for your first run, and see if you like it. You probably will.
Trader Joe’s shortcuts for the win.
One of the best ways to get this recipe done with nothing but stirring is to use the Trader Joe’s frozen ginger and garlic packs. Somewhere in the freezer section close to the vegetables are these tiny red boxes of little minced ginger and garlic squares, and they are MAGICAL. If you use those, you don’t have to pull out a knife at all. I usually do three garlic squares and five of the ginger.
If you want a shortcut in the form of something awesome that’s already been prepped, give Aarti’s ginger garlic paste a try. I make it once a month or so and just keep it in a jar in the fridge. It’s such a great flavor boost.
The Chickpea Bowl Cliffs Notes
If you can stir, you can make this.
It takes maybe 15 minutes total and will give you almost a week’s worth of delicious lunches.
Use what you have, and choose what you like.
Have everything ready to go before you start the stir-cooking since it goes quickly (which, really, is three minutes of gathering and maybe chopping).
Please don’t mathematically measure. Trust yourself. You’re going to be okay.
