Stop Throwing Away Canned Chickpea Water!

Here’s a frugal tip for you – instead of throwing away the water you get with canned chickpeas…make dessert with it!

This may sound insane and I was certainly sceptical of this at first. How can water from a chickpea can, something I usually discard actually be useful?

The secret is to whip it. Once the liquid is whipped, it results in a fluffy, smooth and airy consistency. Very similar to whipped cream or egg whites. I added some vanilla extract and sugar to my mixture which tasted like marshmallow – yum!

This is nothing new – it’s called Aquafaba and is used in a lot of vegan dishes. However, I think us frugal meat eaters can definitely make use of it too!

Simply google “Aquafaba recipes” and you’ll be surprised at what you can come up with!

Here is what I’ve made! I piped the liquid on to a baking sheet to make meringue cookies. The texture was very similar to one of an actual meringue, which shocked me! I also made a berry ice cream by blending up some berries with the liquid, and then freezing it.

A couple of tips:

• Try to use unsalted chickpea cans if possible – makes sure there is no chickpea flavour left
• It takes a long time to whip this up so use a stand or hand held mixer. I personally wouldn’t try to do it by hand! (But I also don’t have muscles)
• Don’t mess around with recipes too much – make them as they are or it might not work!