Tomorrow my girlfriend and I are absconding to the country, and while I couldn’t be more excited, I also have that fear that maybe some of you are familiar with when traveling to a new place: what if we can’t find vegan food? I’m going be proactive and make a big pile of vegan chick pea “tuna” salad because it’s amazing and worst case scenario, we eat it for lunch and dinner for two days in a row. I mean that’s actually not the worst case scenario. I might want to do that regardless of the food options in town.
Does it look like tuna? Yes. Does it taste like tuna? That’s up for debate. It does, however, taste like something I want to eat right out of the bowl as I write this, so that’s something.
Vegan Chick Pea “Tuna Salad”
Ingredients:
2 cans of chickpeas, rinsed thoroughly
1 handful of baby carrots
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
2-3 tablespoons vegan mayo
1 teaspoon lemon juice
salt and black pepper to taste
a food processor, or, a fork and a strong hand
Directions:
In a food processor, pulse the chickpeas until they are tiny pieces. Stop before it becomes hummus, but go until it looks kind of like tuna, about ten pulses. If you don’t have a food processor, you can do this with a fork and some patience.
Remove the chickpea bits and put them in a large bowl. Now pulse the carrots in the food processor until they are tiny bits (or chop up by hand). Combine them with the chickpeas.
Add the nutritional yeast, vegan mayo, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Stir thoroughly yet gently; you don’t want to mush it more than it’s already been mushed.
You can eat this pretty much however you like it, but I recommend on a piece of toast with some leafy greens.
Hola! Longtime veggie girl here. Love the crunch of carrots! I’m trying this today! Here’s a tip 1-2 sheets of Annie Chuns roasted seaweed snacks give it an ocean taste.
Yep! Or any kind of edible seaweed, really. (I mean, nothing that needs to cook/soak for a long time, like dashi kombu, but even the kind you can rehydrate with a little hot water works great.) And I agree that the toast/greens method is the very best way to eat this stuff!
I make something similar to this occasionally–word to the wise: don’t try to use a potato masher if you don’t have a food processor. Chickpeas are too strong for that. I ended up with a slightly rounded potato masher and whole chickpeas. (I’ve since upgraded my kitchen to include a food processor.)
How strange – I often use my potato masher to make hummus! Did you accidentally buy TITANIUM CHICKPEAS?
This was one of my favorite things to eat as a vegan! For ovo lacto vegetarian humans out there, adding a chopped-up hard boiled egg to this recipe is a really awesome addition. It definitely satisfies a tuna sandwich craving.
Went out and bought ALL the chick peas after reading this. (“All” in this case meaning an 800g can)
Goddamnit, so YOU’RE the one responsible for the world chickpea shortage! I was wondering where they’d all got to.
This is very relevant to my life right now. There’s a vegan potluck coming up, and I’m committed to acing it. Thank you for this!
This looks awesome, I make a version of it with added fishy flavour from chopped up nori sheets. So good.
Should have called it Easy Peasy! I tried the recipe and it’s a keeper. Thanks!
I’ve tried another recipe but this one looks even better. Thanks for the veg representation!
holy moses this is so good. i didn’t have nutritional yeast and it still turned out super delicious. thank you gabrielle!
now i need some vegetarian chicken salad, the kind w/ grapes and pecans. you guys. seriously.
Pro-Tip: If you are trying to make this in a blender because you don’t have a food processor, make sure that the bottom of the blender is actually attached. Otherwise, you will end up with garbanzo beans all over your dorm room and will be very, very sad. You know, just hypothetically speaking…
Do you think you could use normal sized carrots for this recipe? Baby ones are super expensive around here =/