Replace Other Crispy Snacks With Roasted Chickpeas: Sweet or Salty

No matter what kind of crispy snack you're craving, you can enjoy roasted chickpeas as a guilt-free, healthy replacement. Eating handfuls of chips or similar snacks will just give you bad news on the scale the next morning. Snacks like chips also tend to be pretty addictive. You know, you can't eat just one.

Unless you can devour a lot more chickpeas than I can -- and I can eat a lot -- you shouldn't have the same binging experience with them. That's because chickpeas are full of fiber and protein. They naturally help you feel satisfied. If you want, you can even eat them when you don't have time to make a proper meal. Even if you do binge, you're eating healthy foo, so that's bound to keep you from eating as much unhealthy food later.

Maybe Talking About Gut Bacteria is Not Appetizing

In my opinion, one of the best benefits of chickpeas is that they serve as a prebiotic. This feeds the good bacteria in your gut, which can help you with weight maintenance and even immunity. Prebiotics also tend to take care of food cravings because you're giving your body what it wants.

If you'd like, you can refer to my previous article about feeding your gut: https://steemit.com/health/@theinsideout/when-you-feel-with-your-gut-that-s-really-your-second-brain

Sweet or Salty Roasted Chickpeas

The good thing about this simple recipe is that you can easily master it once and then create 100 variations. Adjust the recipe to your taste, what you're hungry for, or what you have in your pantry. Oh, the other good thing about this recipe is you can use canned chickpeas, so it doesn't require a lot of advance preparation.

These are the basic ingredients:

• 1 15.5 Ounce Can Roasted Chickpeas: Where I live, these are also called garbanzo beans. I like to rinse packing salt off of these by running cool water over them.
• 1/8 teaspoon of salt: Some recipes call for sea salt, but use whatever you've got. Also, you can adjust the level of salt to your taste.
• 1 Tablespoon of olive oil: You can probably use other kinds of oil, but olive oil works well.
• A roasting pan: I usually use a cookie sheet with raised edges.
• Spray oil for the roasting pan: This is optional.

Salty and Spicy Roasted Chickpeas

For the salty and spicy variation, you can experiment with onion and garlic powder, cayenne pepper, and your favorite spices.

Sweet Roasted Chickpeas

For a sweet treat, add 1 tablespoon of honey. Then use such seasonings as nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, and anise to enhance the sweet taste.

NOTE: I was reminded in the comments that many vegans don't consume honey. A tablespoon of something like coconut sugar would also work well. Thanks for keeping me on my toes.

How to Roast Chickpeas

Follow these steps:

• Preheat your oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
• After you've rinsed the canned chickpeas, make sure you've drained all of the liquid off as well as you can. You might blot them with a paper towel.
• Toss all of your ingredients together to coat each little chickpea. NOTE: If you're making the sweet version, don't use the honey yet because it is likely to burn in the oven.
• Spread the coated chickpeas out on a roasting pan. You can spray the pan first with oil if you think you need to.
• Roast for about 40 minutes or until crispy. You might test one at about 30 minutes to see if they're crispy. Start watching them to make sure they're not burning.
• If you're adding honey, put the warm chickpeas in a bowl and toss them with the honey. Legal warning: Remember that hot chickpeas are hot.

Alternate notes: Some folks prefer to set the oven temperature up to about 450 F and only roast them for 30 minutes. You do you, but I usually prefer cooking at a lower temperature and more slowly because it's proven more idiot proof for me. :)

Let them cool off enough, so they won't burn your fingers and start gobbling them down.

Have You Roasted Chickpeas?

I have noticed that it's more common to find roasted chickpeas in all kinds of stores. These are convenient and healthy snacks to buy. However, you can save money and control the ingredients better when you make them yourself. You can always make extra and put them in baggies to carry along.

Let me know what you think. I generally vote upon and comment on RELEVANT comments. I'm not 100-percent vegan, but I'm moving that way, so I'm interested in all sorts of experiences with this kind of diet. I really like simple and healthy recipes and ideas that can help replace unhealthy food choices.

Images: Pixabay

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