Buffalo Chickpea Caesar Salad {Nut Free}

First of all, a big thanks to all those who have subscribed to S&C after the launch of my eBook, Sprouts & Chocolate: Uncooked. Seeing each notification from my email subscription manager informing me of a new subscriber makes my heart giddy. Anna from Vegan Cookbook Addict made my Pesto Zoodles with Summer Tomatoes and posted it onto her Instagram with the delicious addition of olives. It was late, I was at my restaurant job counting down the minutes until I got to go home, and then I saw Anna’s tag. I squealed with delight and shoved my phone into my coworker’s faces to show them. I am so happy to hear all your comments and feedback as well as seeing your photos of the recipes from the eBook. It makes all the hard work of blogging sooo worth it.

Thank you all so much from the bottom of my heart.

If you want to receive a free copy of my eBook, subscribe on the right hand side bar or at the bottom of this post. Buffalo Chickpea Caesar Salad Vegan Nut Free Redefining Sprouts & Chocolate was a bit terrifying and I tried to convince myself out of it. Just 12 ingredients? For ALL future recipes? Once I started making lists of the recipes, it wasn’t as hard as I imagined. Starting is the hardest part but do whatever it takes to get your ideas in motion. You got this! Buffalo Chickpea Caesar Salad Vegan Nut Free Minimalist living has been on my mind for a little while but I did not know how to put it into practice for my life and not just in my recipes. As I looked around my apartment, I felt burdened by my possessions but felt like I couldn’t part with them. Mark and I live in a 600 square-foot apartment so space is tight. We felt like we were outgrowing this apartment at an alarming rate but it wasn’t the square footage that was the problem, it was the stuff. Just the stuff piled onto more stuff, littered around with more stuff. Buffalo Chickpea Caesar Salad Vegan Nut Free On Friday, my copy of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing came in the mail and during the weekend I read it cover to cover. After each chapter, I could feel my mindset shifting and it became easier to accept discarding my possessions. Mark and I turned our teeny apartment upside down, giving our cramped space some much needed breathing room. In a single afternoon, we managed to get rid of:

  • 5- 45L bags of clothes to donate
  • 4- 45L bags of junk and garbage
  • 40 books (that one was tough)
  • 38 old food magazines
  • 35 VHS tapes
  • 28 DVDs
  • 2-68L Rubbermaid containers with duplicate or unused kitchen supplies
  • 1 large unused cabinet

Every object Mark and I own now has a specific place instead of just cramming something wherever we could find room. This is just the start but like anything, simple living just takes a bit of habit reforming. Sure, I don’t live in one of those Tiny Homes and I did not want to part with all my books but it is a step toward something greater. If you are interested in minimalist living, start by looking around your home and see what it is collecting dust. Do you love it? Does it serve a purpose? Do you use it? If not, I suggest you donate if possible or discard the item. It became also thrilling to see the unneeded things leave my space and I hope you find the same joy. 

What is one thing you can do today, just today, to achieve your goal?

FYI: This post contains an Amazon Affiliate link but I really love Marie Kondo’s book! 

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Buffalo Chickpea Caesar Salad
 
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
 
A revision on an old favourite! I wanted to recreate an older recipe of mine with new life, less ingredients, no oven, and that had a nut-free dressing. Sunflower seeds, when soaked and blended, are wonderfully creamy, light, and delicious. The extra oil in the dressing is needed since sunflower seeds are naturally lower in fat than cashews. The chickpeas crisp up well in a cast iron skillet, however if you do not own one, they will do just fine in a regular pan, it might just take an extra minute or two. This recipe is vegan, gluten free, nut free, and serves 2 generous salads or 4 light sides.
Author:
Ingredients
For the Nut Free Caesar Dressing
  • ½ cup raw sunflower seeds, soaked for 2 hours
  • Juice of 1 lemon, about 4 tablespoons
  • 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
  • 3 garlic cloves, peeled
  • 1 tablespoon nutritional yeast
  • ½ tablespoon white miso
  • 5 tablespoons water, or to desired consistency
For the Buffalo Chickpeas
  • 2 cup cooked chickpeas, drained and rinsed
  • 1 teaspoon arrowroot powder
  • 1 teaspoon paprika
  • ¼ teaspoon fine grain sea salt
  • 4 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
  • 2 tablespoons Frank's Hot Sauce
  • 2 heads of Romaine lettuce, chopped, washed and dried
  • Extra lemon wedges (optional)
Instructions
For the Nut Free Caesar Dressing
  1. Add all the dressing ingredient to a high power blender or food processor and blend until completely smooth. The blender is faster but the food processor will do the trick.
  2. Transfer dressing to a glass jar or bottle and chill in the fridge until ready to use. You may have to add a splash of water to the dressing since it will thicken as it cools.
For the Buffalo Chickpeas
  1. Dry the drained chickpeas between two sheets of paper towels. Gently roll the beans between the paper towels until the chickpeas are fairly dry. Do not skip this step! Your chickpeas will not crisp up if they are wet.
  2. Transfer the dried chickpeas to a medium bowl, add the arrowroot, paprika, salt and olive oil and gently stir to coat the beans.
  3. Heat up a skillet (preferably cast-iron) over medium heat. When the skillet is hot, add the chickpeas, and cooked for 10 minutes, stirring every 2-3 minutes so they do not burn. Wipe out the medium sized bowl that you dressed the chickpeas in.
  4. Try a few chickpeas before taking the pan off the heat to check if they chickpeas are to your desired crispiness. I like mine just crispy on the outside but still meaty on the inside. If you desire a very crisp chickpea, add a few minutes to the cooking time.
  5. Transfer chickpeas to the clean medium sized bowl and add the buffalo sauce. Toss to coat.
  6. Dress the lettuce with the Nut Free Caesar Dressing, top with Buffalo Chickpeas, and serve with additional lemon wedges. Enjoy!

Comments

  1. says

    The salad sounds phenomenal! The chickpeas especially. Yum.
    Oh and I love de-cluttering! It’s getting to be quite the thing now. I’ve noticed a few blogs I follow mentioning this book. I haven’t read it as I actually quite enjoy doing a big “spring” clean every 3-4 months. I only keep things I use regularly. But maybe I’ll check out the book anyway – sounds like a good read.
    I love those tiny homes btw – I want to live in one =)
    ps. I subscribed to your website a few months back, but I don’t seem to have received a copy of the e-book. I’m not sure if it got filtered or something…
    Have a great weekend Jessica!

    • says

      Oh no! I will resend you one! My apologies Kimmy!!

      The tidying book is great and helped my shift my focus onto what I actually needed. My apartment still seems a little cluttered but so much went! Crazy huh? I am so glad that minimalist living is taking off since I have wasted so much money on things I was told I needed. I am so glad my mind set has changed.
      Have a great week Kimmy!!

  2. says

    i loooove minimalist living and aspire to have less stuff all the time. ALSO RE: 12 ingredient recipes, i often include other bogger’s recipes in clients meal plans and time and again the simple ones are the ones that get into regular rotation. Making things easy really is a service to those who fear cooking!

    <3 to you, girl.

    • says

      Me too! Going through my things, it was wild to see what I deemed important in my younger years. Haha! Now, I am all about keeping it simple. Thank you so much for the positive feedback! I am so hoping that my readers dig the new philosophy of 12 ingredients or less and I am so glad you do! You are crazy fierce and your opinion means so much to me.

Trackbacks

  1. […] Last week, Mark and I went camping for the first time together in Norfolk County, Ontario. At a kid, I hated camping; mosquitos love me and I never quite perfected the art of the s’more since I turned my marshmallow into charcoal every time. For these reasons and the fact that we don’t own any camping equipment, I have avoided camping for most of my adult live. Living in the city, I don’t get a lot of time “in the great outdoors” and I wanted to get away from the hot and concrete landscape of Toronto. “Roughing it” in the wildness seemed a little too daunting for a first camping trip so we decided to go glamorous camping aka glamping. This is the kind of camping I can get behind. We packed our snacks for the drive and headed off to Long Point Eco Adventures. Mark and I toured Burning Kiln winery, drank a lot of red wine, went ziplining, viewed stars and planets in their observatory. The staff was enthusiastic about all the activities and we loved our 3-day adventure. Some may say that what we did wasn’t “real camping” but it is a great alternative for those who do not want to buy or store camping gear in their tiny apartment. I wasn’t willing to purchase anything for camping after cleaning out my apartment using the KonMari Method.  […]

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