chickpea peanut sauce

Get ready to be set free! If you think that peanut sauce is 100% fat, something to be enjoyed in the privacy of a broom closet or to be avoided at all costs, you’re absolutely right – assuming your peanut sauce recipe starts with a cup of peanut butter, as many of them do! I mean, how else are you going to get the peanut in there, right? Wrong! This peanut sauce will transform your life, does not contain a cup of peanut butter but you’ll think that it does! Really? Really. Really!

It all starts with a can of chickpeas. When 90% chickpeas and 10% peanut butter come together in a food processor – the trickery begins. Think about it – the texture of chickpeas, when whizzed to smithereens, takes on a peanut butter-like consistency – thick, creamy and oh-so-slightly grainy – so now, all you need is love – which comes in the form of a mere 2-3 tablespoons of actual peanut butter. And FYI – I can’t help myself with the tunes – who can say we can work it out, with a little help from my friends, without channeling the Fab Four?

Back to the less-is-more theory – the same approach applies to cheese – you need much less of it, if you opt for sharper flavours over mild – it takes much more havarti or mozzarella to pack the same flavour punch as a little sharp cheddar or tangy blue – kinda like comparing Betty White and Chris Rock – if profanity is an issue, you can probably take a little more of Betty’s approach! She would be the chickpea to Chris’s peanut butter! So, this is a no-brainer –  before you know it you’ll be singing all about your new-found freedom – no thinking’ll be required ’cause you’ll be scarfing peanut sauce like it might actually be good for you – it’ll be our little secret – when it’s base is garbanzos – it is!

click here to jump down to the chickpea peanut sauce recipe

1. First, start measuring the sauce ingredients and because it is 1/4 cup of 4 ingredients, just use a cup measure and keep going until the cup is full! So, 1/4 cup honey.

2. 1/4 cup soy sauce – you’re now at 1/2 a cup.

3. 1/4 cup of water – you’re now at 3/4 of a cup.

4. The only “special” ingredient is rice cooking wine, available in the asian section of your grocer. Once you start making this sauce you will be stocking rice cooking wine like ketchup! I’ve included a few other uses for it below.

5. And the rice cooking wine makes it a full cup.

6. The chickpeas and garlic go in the food processor.

7. Add the cup of flavourings.

8. Put in the peanut butter.

9. And start your engine.

10. Keep whizzing until it’s completely smooth.

11. Add a shot or two of hot sauce.

12. And a touch more water if you’d like it a little thinner which, apparently, I do!

13. Whiz again and you’re done.

14. You can serve it any way you like – so in the name of serving – 3 bowls, hot sauce in one and sesame oil in another.

15. Swirl with the tip of a knife and yes, you are a food stylist!

16. Or sprinkle a little cayenne on the 3rd. So add whatever you like, or not, and start enjoying peanut sauce with all sorts of things – grilled meats, chicken, seafood, warm noodles, salad, a veggie platter, salad rolls – you’ll soon wonder how you ever got along without it.

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