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Chickpeas tossed in sweet spicy firecracker sauce and cooked to thicken the sauce. Firecracker Chickpeas Served with a crunchy lettuce, carrot, red bell pepper salad, a light drizzle of peanut sauce and garnished with cilantro/scallions. Jump to Recipe
Make this! Oh yes, did I mention the Firecracker sauce. It is divine, and spicy… that name has “fire” in it.
You can also use the firecracker sauce as the dressing. For variation, use kale, greens, other veggies. Use lentils to make firecracker lentils. Serve over rice instead of salad. Add some blanched veggies to the thinned out sauce. Many variations! Depending on your salad and appetite, this serves 2 or 1. the recipe is easily doubled!
Firecracker Chickpeas! Yes! Crunchy Veggies, yes, and creamy PB Sauce. Use sunbutter to make a nut-free dressing.
More fun recipes from the blog
- Moroccan Chickpea Cauliflower Bowl with Herb sauce.
- Teriyaki Chickpea Bao Steamed buns
- Kung Pao Lentils
- Vegan Tinga bowl with Hearts of Palm, Chickpeas, Spanish
Steps:
Arrange the Salad ingredients to preference in a serving bowl. Top with firecracker chickpeas. Those chickpeas are spicyyy and addictive! And the bowl is totally not practical 🙂 I love the salad to a larger bowl to eat.
Dress with peanut sauce or firecracker sauce, cilantro and scallions. Serve
Crunchy Salad with firecracker Chickpeas and Peanut sauce
Ingredients
For the Salad:
- Chopped lettuce , or other crunchy greens
- Grated or thinly sliced carrots
- thinly sliced red bell pepper
- thinly slices zucchini or cucumber
- chopped cilantro , or scallions for garnish
- peanuts for garnish, optional
- 1 recipe Peanut sauce
- Or this Peanut Sauce
For the firecracker chickpeas:
- 15 oz can chickpeas, drained (save the aquafaba for meringue) or 1.5 cups cooked
- 1/2 tsp oil
- 1/4 tsp salt or to taste, depends on if chickpeas were salted
- 1/4 tsp cayenne
- 1/4 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp cornstarch , or other starch
- 1 tbsp hot sauce , such as frank's hot sauce
- 1.5 tsp sriracha , or other asian chile garlic sauce
- 1.5 to 2 tbsp rice vinegar
- 2 to 3 tbsp raw sugar , or brown sugar or other
- 2 tbsp water
Instructions
- Chop up the veggies, toss and place in serving bowl.
- In a skillet, add the chickpeas, oil, salt, cayenne, garlic and mix well. Cook over medium heat for a minute. Add cornstarch and mix to coat.
- Add the sauces, vinegar, water, sugar and mix well. Cook until the sauce thickens, stir occasionally. 4 to 5 minutes. Taste carefully and adjust heat and sweet if needed.
- Cool slightly, add to the salad bowl.
- Make the peanut sauce. Adjust consistency to preference for the dressing by adding more or less water. or add some coconut milk
- Drizzle the salad with peanut sauce, cilantro or scallions and serve.
- Alternatively, add a few tbsp more water to the firecracker chickpeas during cooking and use the firecracker sauce to dress the salad.
- For variation, use kale, greens, other veggies. Use lentils to make firecracker lentils.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Wow – this looks so delicious!!!!
This bowl is amazing! I make it at least once a week!! Love the flavors and textures.
This is amazing. I made it for a pot luck last week. I used paprika instead of cayenne because that’s what I had at the moment and it rounded out the flavour nicely. I also added beets that were hanging around my fridge. Not only were they begging to be used, I thought they would compliment the richness of the peanut sauce and the spiciness of the chickpeas. It was perfect. I will make the chickpeas a day ahead next time because the flavour was even better the next day. Thanks for another great recipe.
Awesome!!
Peanut butter sauce is ALWAYS a good idea.
Scratch that, peanut butter anything is ALWAYS a good idea!!