Tag: chickpeas

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Sweet Potato and Chickpea Salad with Lime, Cilantro & Tahini Dressing

As seasons change, so too does our palette. Whether you ascribe to seasonal dietary changes as those who practice Ayurvedic nutrition do or not, most of us would agree that when the warmth of early fall burns out and winter sets upon us raw veggies and icy lemonade no longer sound so appealing. If we carefully, our bodies tend to crave warming foods—think roasted vegetables, soups and heating spices. We’re all far more likely to go to an Indian restaurant now than amidst the stifling heat and humidity of August.

While our natural instincts may lead us to butternut squash and parsnips, there are those of us that still need a good salad every now and again. A warm salad might just be what many of us need in order to give into the turning times while still feeling grounded and nourished. This warm salad, featuring vitamin-A rich sweet potato and fiber-rich chickpeas, is filling yet light, full of flavor yet detox-friendly.

Sweet Potato and Chickpea Salad with Lime, Cilantro and Tahini Dressing

(makes 4 servings)


What You’ll Need:

Sweet Potato and Chickpea Salad:

  • 2 large sweet potatoes (about 2 lbs), skin-on and cut into cubes
  • 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp turmeric
  • 1/2 tsp smoked paprika
  • Pinch of red pepper flakes
  • Pinch of sea salt
  • 2 Tbs olive oil
  • 1/4 yellow onion, finely diced
  • 2 cups prepared chickpeas (canned works too)

Lime, Cilantro ad Tahini Dressing:

  • 2 small garlic cloves, minced
  • 1/4 fresh cilantro leaves
  • 1/4 yellow onion, finely diced
  • Juice of 2 limes
  • 1/4 cup tahini
  • Sea salt and pepper to taste

How to Make It:

  1. Preheat the oven to 425°F.
  2. In a large bowl, combine the sweet potato, spices, olive oil and a few pinches of sea salt. Toss until all pieces are evenly coated. Roast on a baking sheet for 30 min, or until soft.
  3. Remove from the oven and let cool.
  4. While the sweet potatoes roast, make the tahini dressing. In a food processor (or blender), add all ingredients and mix until smooth. Taste and adjust seasoning. You may opt to add a little water to thin it out.
  5. To bring it all together, combine the sweet potatoes, chickpeas, onion and cilantro in a mixing bowl. Add 3/4 of the dressing, gently folding it into the mixture and serve with the additional dressing on the side.

Be sure you enjoy this recipe right away. Otherwise, set aside the portion of salad you don’t plan to eat undressed and save a small container of the dressing. You can reheat the salad when you’re ready and top with the tasty dressing. This is a great salad to bring to work and keeps well in the refrigerator for up to four or five days.

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Chickpea, Quinoa & Kale Taco Salad + Radicchio Wraps = Super-Bowl

Step up your lunch game with this vegan, gluten-free, Meatless Monday superfood taco salad recipe. Try saying that ten times fast.

If you’re underwhelmed or unsatisfied by your attempts at green salads, don’t throw in the towel on healthier habits. Salads don’t have to be all rabbit food. In fact, adding healthy whole grains, nuts or seeds and legumes to the mix will increase satiety (that feeling of, one, I’ve had enough and, two, it was downright tasty) and decrease the desire to graze after the meal. The fiber, healthy fats and proteins these ingredients bring to the table help improve digestion, stabilize blood sugar and nourish your muscles and mind.

Healthy Taco Salad Wraps

All of the nutrient-dense ingredients (kale, quinoa, chickpeas, etc) in this upgraded taco salad fit into those three categories of superfood add-ons. If you take it a step further and replace your tortilla strips or flour wrap with radicchio leaves, you’re kicking it up to a whole new level of good-for-you. The magenta hue of radicchio comes from a powerful antioxidant and anti-inflammatory pigment called anthocyanin. Anthocyanins are members of the same family of phytochemicals found in teas, honey, wines, fruits, vegetables, nuts, olive oil and cocoa–all of which have received a lot of well-deserved positive buzz from the health and nutrition field. The cherry on top–as well as the moderation factor–are a few coins of baked plantains. It’s amazing how a little something special can take a salad from boring to a monumental taste-bomb of deliciousness.

Healthy Taco Salad Bowl

Raddichio-wrapped Quinoa Kale Taco Salad w/ Spicy Avocado Dressing

Makes 6 servings

What You’ll Need

For the Quinoa Kale Taco Salad:

  • 1 small head of radicchio
  • 1 cup dry red quinoa
  • 6 cups chopped kale (stems removed)
  • 2 cups chickpeas (rinsed and drained)
  • 1 cup corn (canned or frozen works)
  • 1/4 cup raw, unsalted pumpkin or sunflower seeds
  • 1/2 red onion, finely diced
  • 1/2 cup fresh cilantro, finely chopped

For the Spicy Avocado Dressing:

  • 1 ripe avocado
  • Juice of 1 lemon
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 2 large cloves of garlic
  • 1 jalapeno, seeded
  • 1/4 cup fresh cilantro
  • Sea salt and pepper to taste

For the Plantains:

  • 1 plantain
  • 1 tbs olive oil
  • 1/2 tsp sea salt

How to Make It:

  1. Preheat oven to 400 F.
  2. Slice plantains into coins 1/8″ thick and toss in olive oil and sea salt. Place a cooling rack on a baking sheet and lay out a single layer of plantain coins. Bake for 20 min.Turn oven to broil and cook another 5 min, or until light golden brown. Remove and set aside to cool.
  3. While the plantains bake, cook quinoa according to package directions. When it’s done, set it aside to cool.
  4. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Blanch the kale leaves in boiling water for 1 min, then remove from heat, drain and let cool.
  5. To make the dressing, combine all ingredients in a food processor or blender, mixing until smooth. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed.
  6. In a large bowl, combine quinoa, kale, chickpeas, corn, pumpkin or sunflower seeds, onion and fresh cilantro. Pour dressing on top, to taste, and toss until everything is well coated.
  7. Peel a few leaves of radicchio to line your bowl or layer your plate with. Scoop about 1 1/2 cups of the salad into your bowl or onto your plate. Garnish with a few plantains and enjoy!
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Warm Sweet Potato and Chickpea Salad with Greek Yogurt Dressing

Given the nature of my work as  nutrition coach and food educator, it’s not uncommon for my boyfriend to ask me for healthy lunch and dinner ideas. It always makes me really happy to get this request, and it always leads me down a rabbit’s hole of research and recipe development. Too health-conscious to recommend the good ol’ American classic, sandwich and chips, and too obsessed with creating crave-worthy food to suggest a mere green salad, I always take his requests as a challenge. I only succeed when the recipe meets my tried and true trifecta: keep it simple, pack it full of nutrient-dense whole foods and make it taste damn good.

This Warm Sweet Potato and Chickpea Salad with Greek Yogurt Dressing checks all three boxes. I typicaly have the majority of these healthy ingredients on hand (sweet potatoes, chickpeas, onions, non-fat Greek yogurt, lemons, garlic and cilantro), so it was a no-brainer for me and having now significantly influenced his shopping cart I knew it wouldn’t be a stretch for him. Plus, it takes only 4 easy steps to bring this meal together!Warm Sweet Potato and Chickpea Salad

Warm Sweet Potato and Chickpea Salad with Greek Yogurt Dressing

(makes 4 servings)

What You’ll Need

For the Warm Sweet Potato and Chickpea Salad:

  • 2 large sweet potatoes (about 2 lbs), peeled and cut into cubes
  • 2 garlic cloves, minced
  • 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1/4 tsp each ground nutmeg, cloves, ginger
  • 2 Tbs olive oil
  • Sea salt
  • 1 15-oz can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
  • 1/4 of a medium red onion, finely chopped
  • 1/4 cup fresh cilantro, coarsely chopped

For the Greek Yogurt Dressing:

  • 1 medium garlic clove (finely minced if you don’t have a food processor or blender)
  • Juice of one lemon
  • 1/4 cup non-fat Greek yogurt
  • 2-3 Tbs water
  • 2 Tbs olive oil
  • Sea salt and pepper to taste

How to Make It

  1. Preheat the oven to 425°F.
  2. In a large bowl, combine the sweet potato, garlic, spices, olive oil and a few pinches of sea salt.Toss until all pieces are evenly coated. Roast on a baking sheet for 30 min, or until soft. Remove from the oven and let cool.
  3. While the sweet potatoes roast, make the Greek yogurt dressing. In a food processor (or blender), add all ingredients and mix until smooth. Taste and adjust seasoning. You may opt to add more water to thin it out.
  4. To bring it all together, combine the sweet potatoes, chickpeas, onion and cilantro in a mixing bowl. Add half the dressing, toss (careful not to mash up the potatoes) and serve with the additional dressing on the side.

Enjoy this recipe right away. Otherwise, set aside the portion of the salad you don’t plan to eat undressed and save a small container of the dressing. You can then reheat the salad when you’re ready and top with the creamy, lemony-goodness.

Inspired by Smitten Kitchen.

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10-Day Cleanse: Recipes (8-10)

Kale Citrus Salad with Chickpeas

Ingredients:

  • 1 orange, squeezed (4 tbs)
  • 2 tbs apple cider vinegar
  • 2 tbs sesame oil
  • 1 clove of garlic, minced
  • 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
  • black pepper (and salt for the non-cleanse version)
  • 2 cups of curly kale or dinosaur kale
  • 1 cup red cabbage, shredded
  • 1/2 red onion, thinly sliced
  • 1/2 red pepper, thinly sliced
  • 2 tangerines, peeled and separated into sections
  • 2 tbs sunflower seeds
  • 1 tbs sesame seeds
  • 1 cup chickpeas

How to make it:

  1. In a large bowl, squeeze fresh juice of one orange and add apple cider vinegar, sesame oil, cayenne pepper, black pepper and 1 clove minced garlic. Whisk to combine.
  2. In same the bowl, add kale and cabbage. Massage the dressing made in step 1 into the leaves of the kale and shreds of cabbage for at least 2 minutes. Let the kale to sit and marinate for 30 min or more.
  3. Add shallots, red pepper, tangerine sections, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds and chickpeas and toss to combine.
  4. Let the whole salad marinate in the fridge overnight, then enjoy!

Warm Vegetarian Quinoa Salad

Ingredients:

  • 3/4 cup quinoa, uncooked
  • 1 1/2 cups water
  • 1 tbs coconut oil
  • 1/2 eggplant, diced
  • 1 small zucchini, diced
  • 2 cloves of garlic, diced
  • 1/4 tsp chili powder
  • black pepper (and salt for the non-cleanse version)
  • 1 red bell pepper, diced
  • 1/2 cup red kidney beans
  • 1/2 cup chickpeas

How to make it:

  1. In a medium saucepan, toast quinoa over medium-high heat for 1-2 min, being careful not to let it burn. Add water, bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer and cook for 15 min or until all water is absorbed.
  2. While quinoa cooks, heat coconut oil in a large sauté pan over medium heat. Add diced eggplant and zucchini and cook for 7-8 min, or until veggies are tender. Add 2 cloves minced garlic and cook for another 2-3 min. Remove from heat.
  3. When quinoa is done, remove from heat. Add sautéed veggies to quinoa, add black pepper and chili powder, and give it a good mix. (Note: when you’re not on the cleanse, add salt–it’ll taste yummier)
  4. Wait 5-10 minutes then add diced red pepper, red kidney beans, and chickpeas to the quinoa mix.
  5. Taste for seasoning, adjust, and enjoy!