Chickpeas at the Table: Ideas

Chickpeas are an extremely versatile ingredient, suitable for a wide range of food industry applications, including ready-to-eat soups and veloutés, plant-based burgers and meatballs, flours and baking mixes, fillings for fresh pasta and ready-to-eat products, baked or fried crunchy snacks, salads, and chilled ready meals. 

In industrial processing chickpeas offer good yield and attractive technical properties: excellent water absorption during soaking and cooking, good shape retention, maintenance of texture depending on cooking time, and consistent product quality throughout continuous production processes. 

Recommended Pairings for R&D : For new product development, chickpeas pair particularly well with: 

- Cereals: durum wheat, spelt, oats, rice, barley (for soups, salads, and complete meals). 

- Pseudocereals: quinoa, amaranth, buckwheat (for gluten-free and high-protein products). 

- Other legumes: lentils, peas, beans (protein blends for plant-based burgers, spreads, and ready meals).