My son James, my nephew Keane, and I really like this easy chickpea salad recipe. Yum!

The chickpea salad is heavily adapted from the excellent cookbook Vegan Lunch Box by Jennifer McCann. It uses an easy healthy homemade mayonnaise called Beannaise as an ingredient. That recipe is here — it is very quick! Actually, everything about this recipe is very quick!

Cutting potatoes into fries is much quicker if you have a french-fry chopper. My food processor includes one, so I wash a sweet potato, cut it into big chunks, and then I “whoosh” each chunk through the french-fry cutter in seconds — lightning fast! Yum!

Print Recipe

Chickpea Salad with Sweet Potato Fries - quick, vegan, gluten-free, and yummy!

This simple chickpea salad and sweet potato fries makes a satisfying gluten-free, vegan meal. It is lightning-fast -- and delicious!

Prep Time10 minutes mins

Cook Time20 minutes mins

Total Time30 minutes mins

Course: Dinner

Cuisine: American

Author: Valerie Mates

Ingredients

Chickpea Salad

• 3-4 cans of chickpeas rinsed in a strainer (those are 15-ounce cans)
• 1 batch homemade Beannaise - a quick blend made mostly of oil and white beans
• 1 cup chopped pecans you can substitute walnuts, but sometimes they turn the salad purple! (for nut-free, you can leave them out or substitute pumpkin seeds or sunflower seeds)
• 2-3 celery stalks minced
• optional: 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
• optional: a drizzle of sesame oil
• optional: a chopped avocado
• optional: 1/4 cup of dried fruit such as dried cherries
• optional: 1 cup shredded carrots

Sweet Potato Fries:

• 2 pounds of sweet potatoes
• salt
• oil

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
• Rinse the sweet potatoes and cut out any bad spots. Cut them into big hunks, then cut them into french-fry shapes. (This is super quick if you use a food processor attachment for slicing.)
• Put the sweet potatoes on a nonstick cookie sheet. Add about a teaspoon of salt and 2-4 tablespoons of oil.
• Toss the sweet potatoes with the salt and oil, then place them on the top shelf of the oven. It's fine to put them into the oven even if it is not yet fully preheated.
• Bake for about 20 minutes, taking them out from time to time to stir.
• Meanwhile, make the beannaise.
• In a big bowl, mix the chickpeas, beannaise, and all of the other Chickpea Salad ingredients except for the optional avocado -- add that as a topping at the end, if you are using it.
• When the sweet potato fries are turning golden, remove them from the oven.
• Serve each person a pile of sweet potato fries and a scoop of chickpea salad!