Homemade Chickpea Flatbread

These homemade chickpea flatbread rounds are gluten-free, low carb, and high in protein. They’re also easy to make and quite delicious.

On Saturday, my cousin hosted a family gathering. It was a lovely evening with a generous spread of food. When it was all over, Scott and I had a large grocery bag full of leftovers to bring home. After two nights of salads topped with cold cuts, marinated vegetables, and cubes of cheese, we needed a change. And so I made chickpea flatbread.

Faced with a fridge full of sandwich makings, most people would just reach for a loaf of bread. However, we’ve been trying to cut back on carbs late. This homemade chickpea flatbread, while not without some carbs, is a really great, high protein alternative to regular sandwich bread.

For those of you familiar with socca (and in fact, I adapted my version from the socca recipe in Clotilde Dusolier‘s The French Market Cookbook), this recipe will seem familiar to you. It’s a simple batter made of chickpea flour, water, salt, cumin, and a little olive oil. However, instead of pour a large amount of batter into a skillet and transferring it to the oven to cook they way you do when you make socca, I treat it like crepe batter.

I heat a large cast iron skillet, grease it with a little refined coconut oil (it’s the highest smoke point oil I regularly keep around), and the pour a large serving spoon’s worth of batter into the pan. I use the back of the spoon to spread it out as thin as I can make it. They cook on the first side for two or three minutes, and then another minute or two on the reverse. A flexible fish spatula is my favorite tool for flipping.

I find that it’s a lot like making pancakes. The first one sticks and looks terrible, but as you get a feel for the pan and that day’s batter, they get easier. The end result are thin, flexible flatbread rounds that you can use for sandwiches or as a bread to dip in soup.

Tonight, Scott made himself a pair of deli meat wraps, while I stuffed mine with roasted eggplant dip and an assortment of veggies. They’re satisfying and delicious, particularly if you haven’t had a good loaf of sourdough in a while.

PrintChickpea Flatbread

Yield: makes between 8 and 10 flatbread rounds, depending on how big you make them and how thinly you spread the batter

Ingredients

2 2/3 cups chickpea flour
2 cups water
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon cumin
refined coconut oil or some other high smoke point oil for cooking

Instructions

Combine all the ingredients in a blender container and blend until combined (when I don't want to get the blender dirty, I combine the ingredients in a 4 cup measuring cup and use an immersion blender to get a smooth, even textured batter). Let the batter rest for at least half an hour before cooking.
Once the batter has rested, heat a 10 inch cast iron skillet over medium-high heat. Once it's hot, brush the pan with the coconut oil and apply the first spoonful of batter, using the back to smooth it out into an even round that is between four and five inches in diameter.
Cook for two to three minutes on the first side. You know it's ready to flip when the bubbles that appear around the edges pop and stay open. The uncooked side will also go from looking shiny to taking on a matte finish.
Scoot a flexible spatula around the edges of the bread to loosen it from the pan and flip (the first couple always tear for me).
Brush the pan with a touch more oil and repeat the process until you've used all the batter.
They are best eaten immediately, but you can also keep them in a ziptop bag in the fridge and refresh them in a toaster oven the next day. 3.1http://foodinjars.com/2016/07/homemade-chickpea-flatbread/

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