Roasted Chickpeas; Cool Beans!

Here’s the deal. If you haven’t seen the movie Hot Rod or made roasted chickpeas, you need to fix yourself asap!  You know what would be your best option?  Watching Hot Rod while eating a fresh batch of roasted chickpeas!

After my kale chips, these little roasty garbanzos are my fave crunchy, savoury snack to whip up.  And yeah, unlike the somewhat lengthy kale chip process, if you take the canned chickpea route or have some cooked ‘peas on hand like I did today, you can have a bowl of these bad boys for snackin’ in about 30 minutes!  Cool beans!

Depending on your choice of oil and other flavouring, these can have a seriously buttery popcorn-like flavour, without that whole horrible undigestible and high-glycemic little problem popcorn has.  That’s right friends, I’m even dissing your innocent little air-popped corn treat.  Sure, it might be gluten free and potentially fat-free, but corn can be a serious bitch to digest, and air-popping those kernels makes already high-glycemic corn a serious blood sugar-spiking indulgence.  Chickpeas, on the other hand, are low-GI, fiberrific, and seriously protein-filled.  Add some B-vitamin-loaded nutritional yeast, and you got yourself a seriously nutritious and delicious snack, bub!

But seriously?  These are just delicious, and that’s mostly why I’m telling you to eat them.  Cool beans?

Roasted “Cheesy” Chickpeas

2 cups or 1 can cooked chickpeas
1 tbsp extra virgin coconut or olive oil
1/2 tsp sea salt
2 tbsp nutritional yeast
optional: dash cayenne, curry powder or spice of choice

Preheat oven to 350F.  Melt coconut oil in oven-proof dish while oven heats up  Toss chickpeas, salt, yeast, spices in oil until ‘peas are coated.  Spread out in a single layer on a baking tray.  Bake 15-20 minutes, give them a toss around on the baking tray and bake another 15 minutes.  Chickpeas will be a little crispy, golden, buttery, “cheesy” and delicious.  Eat them up while you watch Hot Rod, or toss ‘em on a salad for fun!

Cool beans?  Cool beans.