How to Cook Chickpeas
From The Kitchen · a prep-ahead staple
A Set-the-Week staple — make once, eat all week.
Dried chickpeas ask for a little foresight — an overnight soak — but the reward is a creaminess canned never quite reaches. A single pot yields the better part of a week.
Ingredients
- 1 cup dried chickpeas
- Cold water, for soaking
- Fresh water, for cooking
- 1 bay leaf (optional)
- ½ teaspoon baking soda (optional)
- Sea salt, to finish
Method
- Sort through the chickpeas, discard any stones, and rinse.
- Cover generously with cold water and soak overnight, at least 8 hours.
- Drain and rinse, then cover with fresh water by two inches; add the bay leaf and baking soda, if using.
- Bring to a boil, skim off the foam, then reduce to a gentle simmer.
- Cook 60–90 minutes, until tender to the bite, salting in the final 15 minutes.
- Drain, reserving a little cooking liquid for hummus.
Storage: Keeps 5 days in the refrigerator, or freezes 3 months in their cooking liquid.
Why we soak — and the kombu trick
Dried chickpeas soak for two reasons: they cook faster and more evenly, and the soak begins rinsing away the complex sugars that make chickpeas hard to digest — the ones that leave you feeling heavy and gassy. Cover generously with cold water, soak overnight, then drain and rinse well before cooking. No time? Bring them to a boil for two minutes, cover, and let stand an hour — a quick soak does the same work. And dried chickpeas are cleaner than canned — no can linings, no added sodium — which is why they're worth the small effort.
Then add a strip of kombu (dried kelp) to the pot as they simmer — wipe the sheet with a little water first, then drop it in. It makes chickpeas far gentler on digestion, adds gentle minerals like iodine, and deepens the flavor. Kombu is salty and strong, so one strip is plenty; lift out whatever hasn't dissolved at the end of cooking.
Gina's tip
A half-teaspoon of baking soda in the cooking water coaxes them tender faster and loosens the skins — the quiet secret to silky hummus.
Canned will do in a hurry, but a pot of chickpeas cooked from dried is one of those small luxuries that costs pennies and tastes like care.
I hope this recipe finds a place in your kitchen as it has in mine. Enjoy!
— Gina