Chickpea Vegetable Bowl with Peanut Dressing Recipe on Food52 (2024)

Weeknight Cooking

by: Leanne Brown

June21,2021

10 Ratings

Chickpea Vegetable Bowl with Peanut Dressing Recipe on Food52 (1)

Serves 4

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Author Notes

This four-serving meal will cost you between $7 and $10 to make.

Note: If you are cooking the chickpeas from dried, consider doubling or even tripling the batch you are making and store the cooked chickpeas for later use in the fridge or freezer. They store very well, and cooking in big batches is much more efficient since it takes no more time. —Leanne Brown

Test Kitchen-Approved

What You'll Need

Ingredients

For the dressing:
¹/₄ cuppeanut butter (or any nut or seed butter)
1 tablespoonsriracha or sambal oelek
2 limes, juiced (about 1/4 cup of juice)
1 tablespoonfish sauce (optional)
1 teaspoonsoy sauce (optional)
Salt, to taste
Water, as needed

For the salad:
2 cupsdried chickpeas (or two cans, drained and rinsed)
1 ¹/₂ teaspoonssalt
1 small red cabbage, shredded
2 large carrots, shredded or grated
¹/₃ bunchscallions, chopped
cilantro, to taste (optional)
peanuts, chopped (optional)

Directions

Cook the chickpeas (skip this step if using canned chickpeas): Rinse the dried chickpeas and let them sit submerged in cold water for a few minutes. Pick out any chickpeas or random bits that rise to the top and discard. Drain the rinsed chickpeas and place into a pot along with the salt and cover with at least 4 inches of water above the line of chickpeas. Bring to a boil on high heat, then turn the heat to low and maintain a gentle simmer. Check on the beans every half hour or so, making sure to keep them covered with water if it boils away. Cook for 1 1/2 to 3 hours, until the chickpeas are soft and cooked through. To lessen the simmering time, you can soak the chickpeas in water overnight, which can cut down on cooking time by an hour or more. Once chickpeas are cooked, store them in their cooking liquid, but drain them before adding to salad.
In a large bowl whisk together the peanut butter, sriracha or sambal oelek, lime juice, fish sauce (if using), and a sprinkling of salt. If you have it around and think the dressing could use a more salty hit, add a teaspoon or so of soy sauce and taste. At this point, the dressing will still be fairly thick and sticky, so drizzle a bit of water in and whisk. Keep adding water and whisking until you have a pourable dressing. Taste and add more salt, lime juice, or peanut butter to your liking.
In the bowl with the dressing, add the chickpeas, shredded cabbage, and carrots and toss it all together with tongs until everything is coated.
Pile it into bowls and top with scallions, chopped cilantro, and peanuts if desired.

Tags:

Salad
Bean
Vegetable
Carrot
Chickpea
Cilantro
Green Onion/Scallion
Peanut
Peanut Butter
Soy Sauce
Weeknight Cooking
Fall

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31 Reviews

jenncc January 15, 2024

Quick and easy salad and hearty enough to be a stand alone meal! I swapped the amounts of soy (1 Tbsp) and fish sauce (1 tsp).

Nancy M. February 20, 2023

This is delicious. I used green cabbage and skipped the fish sauce. So good. Any thoughts on using tahini instead of peanut butter? Too oily?

rcdwyer17 February 13, 2023

super easy and delicious, surprisingly filling. I halved the fish sauce and served with grilled (or roasted) shrimp, otherwise wouldn't change a thing.

NS February 6, 2023

This is a solid base recipe with a couple of caveats:
1) The amount of dressing is a little scant for the veggies and beans. Next time I will make a little extra. As some other reviewers mentioned, I balanced the dressing with a bit of maple syrup.
2) I wouldn't add much water to the dressing, because remember the raw veggies will weep a little after you dress them. I'm glad I held off on thinning the dressing.
3) I might also add a little toasted sesame oil next time to lean into the Asian dressing more.
4) We had this with some leftover mini herb rolls from Maurizio Leo's book, The Perfect Loaf.

NS February 6, 2023

Oh and this will serve way more than 4. Two cups dried chickpeas yield 5-6 cups of cooked, which is the equivalent of 4 standard 14.5 oz cans. I missed catching this earlier. This may be why I needed more dressing. (I didn't use all my cooked chickpeas, probably only about 4 cups.)

Anna November 12, 2019

My go-to lunch time salad when I need to pack something fast! I always have the ingredients, the fish sauce-lime tang is fantastic, and the chickpeas make it filling. Keeper!

Nikki F. March 31, 2019

This was delicious! I upped the scallion and carrot ratio, only ended up using 1 can of garbanzos, and added two small mangoes. I wish I would have made a bit more dressing as this yielded a lot of salad. I served it with grilled chicken and rice noodles on the side. Thanks for a great recipe!

Alli October 2, 2018

This is constantly in my take to work lunch rotation. Super easy and delicious. In defiance of the recipe name, I've actually started omitting the chickpeas (I make a lot of chickpea based salad bowls and needed to mix it up) and started adding chopped cucumbers, which has worked out well. Maybe in a few weeks I'll start adding the chickpeas again, but this recipe is a keeper! :)

PJ May 9, 2018

This is a great concept recipe. I found the peanut dressing needed a bit of palm sugar for balance. I added red pepper, cucumber, and shredded leftover deli chicken. I also added mint to the herb garnish. This is a keeper.