We’re in love with this quick and easy cheesy recipe that our friend Bash taught us to make. It goes great with stir fried vegetables, and can also be delicious as a stand alone dish.
Serves: 4
Time: 30 min
Ingredients
2 T olive oil
1 med size head of cauliflower, diced
1/2 large onion, diced
3 cups cooked chickpeas* (2 cans)
1/2 to 1 tsp salt, according to taste
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp turmeric
1/8 tsp red pepper flakes
2 cups of cashew cheese
green onion, sliced for garnish
Cook onions on medium low heat until they start to brown about 7 min. Add cauliflower and cook for another 10min. Add chickpeas and remaining seasoning, cook until the cauliflower is soft and starting to brown and get crispy (another 20min). Pour cashew sauce over and stir until incorporated and warm. Garnish with green onion and enjoy!
*Cooking chickpeas from dry:
In the Instant Pot:
To cook the chickpeas in an Instant Pot, add 1 1/3 cups of dried chickpeas to the pot. Cover the chickpeas with water (in the small Instant Pot this is about 6 cups of water), season with 2 tbsp kosher salt, 2 tbsp turmeric, 2 bay leaf, and 1/4 tsp cayenne. Set the Instant Pot to pressure cook for 35 minutes letting depressurize naturally. Drain and rinse before adding to the dish.
On the stove:
If you don’t have an Instant Pot, you can easily cook chickpeas from scratch with a little planning. First you will need to soak the chickpeas which can be done one of two ways. 1. you can soak them overnight making sure they have enough water and space to double in size or 2. you can put them in a pot and bring to boil, then turn off the water and let soak for one hour. Again, make sure you have enough water and space that they can double in size.
Once you have soaked your beans, rinse them and then put in a pot with salty water. These will be cooking for about 2 hours so you don’t want as much salt as you would use for pasta, but you do want to add enough that you can taste the salt. The best way to get good at this is to practice. Each time you salt the water, taste it and when the beans are done taste them to see if they are well salted. A well salted bean should taste flavorful but not salty. If it tastes like you are eating salt, you added too much. If the bean lacks flavor then you didn’t have enough salt.
For this recipe, also add 1 tbsp turmeric, 1 bay leaf, and 1/4 tsp cayenne to the chickpeas as they cook. Cook the chickpeas until they are soft but not falling apart (this will take 1.5-2 hours). We recommend checking the beans at about an hour and then every 20 minutes until they are soft but not disintegrating. Make sure your pot has enough water as I have definitely cooked all the water off before and burnt the beans! This may seem like a lot of work, however once you get the hang of it the work is almost all passive and the reward is high: chickpeas cooked from scratch taste much better and are much cheaper!