Chickpea Flour Frittata
I’ve been vegan for the best part of a year and for years prior to that I’ve been practicing healthy cooking with ingredient substitutions, so I feel like I’ve more or less seen it all when it comes to unique recipes. But then I found out that you can make a frittata from chickpea flour and my world temporarily turned upside down.
On paper it doesn’t look like it should be possible. It also sounds like something you should apply that old mantra to – just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. I mean, people make meringues from aquafaba. Never heard of it? I hadn’t either, until I discovered there is a whole world of recipes devoted to using chickpea brine. Yes, people drain the liquid from a can of chickpeas and use it to make meringues. And macaroons, and apparently many other baked goods. I haven’t tried it because I gag a little every time it’s mentioned. I like my meringues sweet and snowy and preferably not with a side smell of legume.
Quiches and frittatas, however, are fair chickpea game. So I followed a recipe that changed my life, because of all the things I miss the most, eggs have recently shot back up to the top of the list. Not boiled or scrambled, although I loved those, but more for the many ways they can be used in cooking. They are so multi-purpose and there’s no substitute quite like them. It’s only when I stopped eating them that I realised how paramount they are to so many dishes.
So this was a most welcome surprise and something I can see myself making regularly on a lazy Sunday morning. Egg-free readers, welcome to your new breakfast.
Chickpea Flour Frittata
Ingredients:
- 1 3/4 cups chickpea flour
- 1/4 cup nutritional yeast, optional
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 1 tsp basil/mixed herbs
- 2 1/4 cups water
- Chopped veggies of choice – you can use whatever you have in the fridge. I used a punnet of mushrooms, 1 small onion, 2 handfuls of spinach and 1 red pepper.
Instructions:
- In a large mixing bowl, combine chickpea flour, nutritional yeast, baking powder, salt & pepper, garlic powder and herbs. Whisk in the water.
- Add chopped veggies to wet mix.
- Pour mixture into a greased pie pan and cook one of two ways: bake at 180 degrees for around 30 minutes. Check from 20 mins onwards – the filling should be firm but not overcooked. It comes out almost exactly like an egg filling so use that as a guideline. Alternatively, fry it like an omelette in a frying pan, finishing off the top underneath the grill. Both ways work well.
*Health benefits of chickpea flour*
Chickpea flour is a low carb flour that’s high in protein, fibre and minerals. Half a cup contains a whopping 11 grams of protein, 5 grams of fibre and nutrients like folate, iron, magnesium and zinc. It also contains 3g of mostly unsaturated fat which helps lower bad cholesterol.