How to cook chickpeas on the Instant Pot?

Do you love beans? Do you love your instant pot but are too clueless about what to do with it? Are you thinking of getting one? Do you just want to try to cook things differently? I got you. I check all the boxes of the categories mentioned above and therefore, I always have instant pot-ready beans in my fridge. That is the reason why I want to continue my “How to cook beans on the Instant Pot” series with another bean and recipe: Chickpeas and a moroccan style chickpea soup that you are just going to love!

Chickpeas: where do I start?

I have already talked about my love for the instant pot in the previous chapter of this series, the lentil version. Do not hesitate to go and check that post out to get an extra recipe on bean-cooking with our beloved Instant Pot.

In the previous post I also cover the two top questions when cooking beans with the IP. A sum up:

• You can choose to soak up your beans if you feel digestion is better for you. In my own personal experience, it does not change anything so I never soak my beans up.
• Yes, the instant pot can drastically reduce the cooking time of your beans. However, it won’t take 2 minutes to cook them. Dry beans are dry beans and even with the most instant pot power, you still need to cook them.

Cooking chickpeas with your instant pot

Beans are amazing. Lentils give you so much versatility, white beans, pinto beans, black beans, they are just so great. But chickpeas? Boy, they are on another level, at least for me. They are just so tasty and their nutrient values are just off the charts. And for reasons that I can comprehend, they are extremely expensive when you buy them uncooked in France.

When I think chickpeas, I think “cheap, easy to get and delicious”. Then I moved to France and realized that for french people it just means “extremely overpriced, not so easy to get uncooked and somehow disappointing taste”. I love dry beans: not only it allows you more freedom to cook them, but it is also more environmentally friendly. Buying things in bulk/dry beans in France isn’t the cheapest option, but I have recently found a supermarket that has dry beans for reasonable prices (3-5€/kg for most beans). Yet, chickpeas remain super expensive (13€/kg). And it makes me angry.

Nonetheless, I bought a small package yesterday to show you guys how I would normally cook them from scratch!

Method

• 6 cups of water
• 250g of dried chickpeas

The package of chickpeas I bought were “quick to cook” and it said 15 minutes. My rule of thumb with the instant pot is to cut the cooking time in half, but I still recommend doing a bit above 7 minutes.

Once you have put the water and the chickpeas, close the lid of your instant pot and put the vent to “pressure”. Select “pressure cooker”. For my chickpeas, I put a total of 10 minutes, but with normal “non quick to cook” chickpeas, you should put a total of 14 minutes. When the timer goes off, do a natural release for 10 minutes then quick release.

Recipe: Moroccan style chickpea soup

With the batch of chickpeas you just cooked, the possibilities are endless. I chose to make dinner with them and decided to make a good hearty moroccan style chickpea soup. This recipe is such an easy one. It’s a dump-and-forget-about-it recipe. You just put all the ingredients in the instant pot, close the lid, set the timer & forget about it.

I prepared all the vegetables to smooth the process of cooking and to be more efficient while the chickpeas were cooking in the instant pot. Place all the ingredients inside the instant pot (chickpeas – veggies – spices – canned tomatoes – veggie broth) and let it do its magic.

With all the ingredients are inside, you can go ahead and close the lid, put the vent to “pressure”, and set a manual/pressure cooker timer for 8 minutes. When the instant pot starts to beep because the timer is at zero, do a natural release for 10 minutes then a quick release.

You can check up the entire recipe in one of the newest features of tofucado, the recipe template below.

Did you make this recipe?

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Before you go, I’d love to just share a few words regarding the tofucado project. Back when I started with this I never truly thought I could achieve what I have achieved so far. You have probably noticed a few changes in the url of the blog as well as the more visual side of it. I officially own the tofucado domain and I have created a whole new visual side to tofucado.

I have discovered and learned things I never thought I would when I started this journey and I am so glad that I took the time and commitment to get where I am. There is still a long way to go but tofucado is growing a bit more every day and I have successfully published more than 20 articles. I know that might not seem like a lot to some people but for someone who had systematically failed at keeping up with a blog schedule and routine, more than 20 articles means so much to me.

What does this all mean? It means better quality looking posts to you guys, and more possibilities on my end. It also means more responsibilities and stuff to manage but it all feels so good. My articles will look more polished and at the end of every post there will be a printable version of the recipe I presented to you. Don’t hesitate to share your thoughts in the comments section and most importantly, tell me if you try this recipe!