This stuffed sweet potato with chickpeas recipe is for all the broke students, the lazy cooks, the zero-waste lovers, and busy families.
For the past 10 years, Uri has been working in fine dining establishments. But he always dreamed of serving what he cooks home for himself (and his son). Just simple, good food, easy to make and so satisfying you want to eat it almost daily. Be it breakfast or lunch, or a quick dinner to cook while simultaneously playing with legos.
This dish is a perfect example of a delicious meal that looks super fancy but is almost no effort to prepare. A lot can be done in advance, it’s good to eat hot or cold. You can tweak it a million times, and it will still be delicious.
Just switch the herbs and spices or substitute beans for the chickpeas. It doesn’t matter. Really! Just get creative and work with the things you already have in your pantry.
As a topping, we used fennel, canned chickpeas, and tahini. Fennel was in season, so it was extra cheap, but feel free to substitute it if fennel is too expensive (we suggest radish or celery). Both tahini and chickpeas have a long shelf life, and canned chickpeas are inexpensive. Even tahini tends to cost a little more; a jar of tahini will last you a long time. Unless your name is Uri, you’ll need 3 jobs because you run through these jars like nothing because you put it on everything, and you probably use it as shower gel and lube.
But let’s talk about the fennel. After years of discarding the stalks of the fennel or using them only for stocks, we finally found this quick pickling method that keeps them crunchy and adds a nice tanginess. Slicing the stalks prevents fibrousness. The bulbs go into the salad. The fugly stalks are chosen to be the aromatics for the chickpeas, and the pretty stalks are getting pickled. Even the fronds find a home as garnish (because we like to make things pretty).
The stuffed sweet potato with chickpeas is a highlight for every person obsessed with different textures and flavors.
The sweet potato itself is creamy and soft. The tahini adds even more creaminess and salty flavors. The chickpea salad adds crunch and freshness, and the tangy pickles balance out the sweetness of the sweet potato. What is there not to love?
Vegan Stuffed Sweet Potato With Chickpea Salad
Ingredients
- 2 sweet potatoes similarly sized
- 2 tbsp rock salt
- 3 sprigs rosemary
- 2 lemons go for organic as you use the peel
- 1 can chickpeas drained and rinsed
- 1 clove garlic
- 1 fennel
- 50 g tahini or more if you like happiness in you life
- ½ tsp ground cumin
- handful mint finely sliced
- handful parsley finely sliced
- olive oil a lot!!!
- a dash white wine vinegar
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 200 degrees celsius.
- Wrap each sweet potato individually with 1 sprig of rosemary, 1 tbsp rock salt and a splash of olive oil. Roast for about 30 minutes, depending on the size of the potatoes, until very soft.
- Meanwhile, place the chickpeas in a small pot with the peel of ½ lemon, some of the less good looking bits fennel, garlic clove and remaining sprig of rosemary, add a bit of salt and cover with water. Bring to a simmer and let the flavours infuse for about 15 minutes (or the time the sweet potato spends in the oven).
- Prepare the fennel by first separating the fronds (keeping them for later), then cut the stalks. Finely slice the nicer looking stalks, and make a quick pickle by mixing them with a bit of salt, olive oil, white wine vinegar and juice of ½ a lemon.
- Cut the bulb in quarters and finely slice.
- Cut a whole lemon into quarters, then make a diagonal cut to remove the pith, this will help remove all the seeds, then slice very finely.
- Prepare the tahini by mixing it with juice of ½ a lemon, cumin, salt, then gradually add water little by littler while stirring, until you reach a creamy consistency. (if this process is new to you, you might think you´ve failed as it will first look very wrong and unappealing, just continue adding water little by little, it will turn from a scary crumbly mess to beautiful silky cream).
- Strain the chickpeas, removing all the aromates. Mix with the sliced fennel, pickled fennel (and some of the pickling juice), sliced lemon, mint, parsley, salt, and olive oil.
- unwrap the sweet potato, slice open, top with tahini, then the fennel salad, reserved fennel fronds, and a drizzle of olive oil.
Have you tried the recipe? What do you think? Tell us in the comments below and make sure to follow us on TikTok and Instagram!
