3 chickpea stews with vegetables for your healthy weekly menu

The cold seasons bring the stews back. Without a doubt, they are the stars of this time of thick jersey and duvet, and also a very good dinner option. Introduce them in your batch cooking and take out the large pot: never miss a plate of vegetable stew when you have run out of time to cook.

In this article we will focus on chickpea stews. Chickpea stews are great allies in weekly planningSince they work very well as single dishes, they can be cooked in large batches, and they freeze with no problem.

It is what you can do by following the weekly menu that we share with this post, a seasonal menu for the cold months in which there will be no shortage of stews and other spoon dishes. Here we offer you varied dishes every day, but you can overcook and freeze for another weekor take advantage of a few days later by making the relevant substitution.

Let’s first look at some tips for cooking chickpea stews and three recipes for vegetable stews made with this legume. These are traditional and very common chickpea stew recipes, but in their vegetable version, lighter and healthier, and all of them are included in the healthy weekly menu that you can download below.

How to cook chickpea stew with vegetables

The 100% vegetable stews They are not a novelty in Spanish cuisine, in which dishes “a la jardinera” are typical. In these meatless dishes, the legume is the star.

Now, as it is a strong dish, we will avoid the main legume, in our case the chickpeas, being the protagonist: add the vegetables that you think are convenient and consume only what you consider to be a portion of legumes, but well accompanied by vegetables.

That being said, here are other tips when preparing your chickpea stew with vegetables:

The vegetable meat we can change it for more legumes or use alternatives such as textured soy or pea protein, or the “legume”, which are nothing but other textured legume flours. we can also use chickpea or soy tempeh or even tofu or hemp seeds.Also is true that In traditional dishes it is very common to use sausage, especially chorizo, as well as very fatty cuts. These ingredients, which are not beneficial for health, can be replaced by homemade and vegetable versions of these sausages, such as this homemade vegetable version of chorizo, as well as good quality artisan vegetable sausages. Another very common option among vegans is use the same mixtures of spices as the sausages to achieve a flavor close to the traditional one. In this way, a very tasty stew remains, with a taste similar to the one we remember, and totally vegetable.

For the following recipes, you can use dried or already cooked chickpeas, either homemade or canned. You can also adapt the recipes to your liking.

Remember that it is important that, if you start from the dried chickpea, give the chickpea a 24 hour minimum soak. It’s not just about cooking faster; soaking makes it more digestible and helps assimilate all the fantastic nutrients it offers us.

1. Chickpea stew with spinach

This chickpea stew recipe can be considered the most basic and with it We can make any changes that are necessary.: from using another green leaf, such as spinach, to adding different spices or vegetable meats.

As we have already mentioned, there many other vegetables that can be added and it is also about testing which is the combination that we like the most.

Ingredients:

400 g of dried chickpeas 500 g of spinach 2 carrots 2 onions 2 tablespoons of double concentrated tomato 1 clove of garlic 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil 2 bay leaves 1 handful of chopped parsley leaves 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil water and/or vegetable stock salt and pepper taste

Preparation:

Drain the chickpeas, discarding the soaking water and washing them well. Clean the onions, garlic and carrots, peeling them all. Leave an onion and a carrot whole if you are going to grind part of the vegetable, as this will make it easier to remove from the broth. In a frying pan, brown the garlic and at least one of the onions. Add the chopped parsley In a saucepan, add to boil a large quantity of water. When it boils, add the chickpeas and raise the heat to bring it to a boil again. Lower the heat and add the bay leaf, an onion and a carrot. We cook them for an hour or an hour and a half in a conventional pot (or about 25 minutes in a pressure cooker). Remove the onion, carrot, a ladle of chickpeas and some liquid and make a puree. We remove the liquid if there is excess, since we are going to mix the chickpeas with this puree and with the sauce, using the same pot. We will then add the clean and finely chopped spinach. Cook until they are tender and the sauce is well combined with the purée. We let it rest before serving, even overnight (it improves with rest).

This plate can be served with rice, bread or potatoalthough by itself it is already a consistent dish.

A very common trick is to add a small potato or a handful of rice to the cooking of the chickpeas so that the starches thicken the stew.

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2.​ Andalusian-style chickpea stew

In the traditional recipe pork is used and chorizo ​​is also added. You can use a vegan chorizo ​​or make homemade choricero-style seitan.

Ingredients for 4 – 6 servings:

400 g of chickpeas 200 g of homemade seitan 400 g of potato 2 white onions 1 large carrot 1 red pepper 3 garlic cloves 1 bay leaves 1 teaspoon of paprika (at least, you can use more) 3 or 4 tablespoons of virgin olive oil Half a glass of white wine 1 vegetable-style chorizo Avus or Dungeon (optional) saltwater

Preparation:

We make the chickpeas with the carrot, the onion and two cloves of garlic along with the bay leaf, as in the first recipe. You can choose to mash or not that vegetable to thicken the broth. If you are not going to grind it is better that the carrot is sliced. In the case of using chorizo, we take advantage while the chickpeas are being cooked to sauté it in a pan, cut into finger slices. We also cut the seitan into cubes and in the same previous frying pan, with the excess oil, we brown it. Reserve these vegetable meats. Chop the onion, garlic and pepper as finely and small as possible, and poach these vegetables for about 10 minutes. Add the seitan or vegetable meat together with the white wine and a little broth and let it Reduce by half. Peel the potatoes and cut them into medium cubes. In the pot with the already cooked chickpeas, add the seitan with the sauce, the vegan chorizo ​​and the potato. Add the paprika and salt. Cook over low heat for about 10 minutes, checking that the potato is done well. Once ready, we let it rest for at least 15 minutes with the lid on.

3. Chickpea stew with express chard

We already see that these recipes need a lot of time, which is why sometimes they can make us lazy. It is also why we usually do a lot, since the time at the end is almost the same. but there is Tricks to make stews faster:

The legume It can be from a boat or we can already have it cooked al dente. potato It can be added steamed in the last minutes of cooking to reduce cooking time. We can unify steps of the traditional stew.

Ingredients for 2 or 3 servings:

400 g of cooked chickpeas 1 bunch of Swiss chard 1 carrot 1 onion 2 tablespoons of double concentrated tomato 1 clove of garlic 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil 1 bay leaves 1 teaspoon of sweet paprika 1 handful of parsley 2 tablespoons of virgin olive oil water and/or vegetable broth salt and pepper to taste potato steamed or already cooked brown rice (optional)

Preparation:

We wash and clean all the vegetables and leaves. Cut the carrots into slices and chop the rest very well, separately. In a frying pan, brown the onion and garlic with the oil. Lower the heat and add the carrots and other vegetables of your choice. We also add the concentrated tomato with a glass of water, the chopped parsley and the chard stalks, not the leaf. We cover with broth and cook over low heat for about 10 minutes with the bay leaf. Add broth if necessary. Then add the cooked chickpeas, the chard leaves, and the paprika. Stir well and add the large cubed potato or the cooked brown rice. Add salt and pepper to taste and let everything cook together for a few minutes. Once ready, let it rest for another 5-10 minutes with the lid on.

Winter healthy weekly menu

On this week’s menu, designed especially for the autumn and winter months when crave more hearty dishesyou will find the chickpea stew recipes that you have just seen but also other spoon dishes.

Keep in mind that the usual in the same week is take advantage of that large pot of stew and eat it or dine it several times. Also that, although in these stew recipes we use chickpeas, you can choose another legume if you feel like changing.

Download the menu seasonal weekly here.

The best accompaniment to a chickpea stew or another legume is a seasonal salad, in which we obtain the daily serving of raw vegetables. You can also add fruits such as apple or pear to make them more complete in vitamins.

Remember that, despite the cold, it is still important to hydrateand that water (and not teas and infusions) should be our first and best option.