Vegan chickpea (garbanzo bean) and lemon rice is a substantial simple one-pan side dish that is fresh and bright with a little lemon zest, packed with high protein chickpeas and hearty brown rice.
You are just going to love this easy peasy little vegan chickpea (garbanzo bean) lemon rice side dish because it only takes about 30 minutes to whip up. You can use one pot, so clean up is a snap. It only has 9 ingredients and 2 of these ingredients are readily on hand water and salt and pepper. It is easy on the wallet and it uses only a handful of readily accessible pantry shelf items. Vegan chickpea lemon rice is happily gluten-free, egg free and dairy free.
When we used to live in the States we used love to visit a Greek greasy spoon called "Leo's Cafe". One of our favorite dishes was their lemon rice soup. It is a little too hot outside to be eating soup, at the moment, but my deconstructed vegan chickpea lemon rice is absolutely fantastic along side grilled chicken, lamb or even as a vegan main dish with a nice tossed salad.
However, I have an ever better recipe idea using my vegan chickpea lemon rice that you are going to absolutely love but you are going to have to wait until later this week to find out the recipe. Recipe coming soon to a monitor near you!
Fresh lemons are absolutely the best and I just love how delightful it make my kitchen smell. Did you know that you can freeze lemons? So if you find yourself a big lemon sale or unable to go through a huge bag before they start to degrade, just freeze your lemons whole in a sealable plastic baggie in the freezer. They will keep for about a month in the freezer and if you need lemon zest just zest them while they are frozen and if you need the juice just put them in a bowl of water for about 15 minutes to soften or if need be microwave for a few seconds. Frozen lemons are miles better than questionable fake squeezable lemon that comes in a plastic lemon squeeze container you find down the alcohol isle of your grocery store. You can freeze limes as well.
Contrary to popular belief, do not be putting in 2 parts water to 1 part brown rice, well that is unless you enjoy brown rice congee, is going to taste like rice gruel. The perfect ratio is just about 1 and ⅛-1/4 cup water to 1 cup brown rice. If you cook your brown rice in a medium pot over the stove, you can cook the whole dish in one pot.
Today just going to keep it short and sweet ,as I am off to keep my boys fueled for their exam papers and end of year projects. Lots of studying makes for very cranky kids so our only ammo as parents is to give them a quick pep talk about the benefits of school and if they are boys just keep a steady flow of food rolling into the study room. I just received a food request for a homemade baked apple pie, a chicken Caesar salad and homemade ravioli. It is going to be a long two months! I can't wait for July!
If you are looking for some other fun and easy RICE DISHES, I hope you will enjoy these...
Kimchi Pantry Fried Brown Rice
Vegan Chickpea Lemon Rice
Ingredients
- 2 cups brown rice
- 2.25 cups water
- 2 tsp Vegetable powder (1 cube)- or you can use chicken powder if you do not need to be vegan (gluten free)
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 2 cloves garlic
peeled and minced (or 1 teaspoon dried ground garlic) - salt and pepper
to taste - 1.5 tbsp lemon zest
- 15 oz garbanzo beans (chickpeas)
- 2 tbsp parsley garnish, finely chopped - optional
Instructions
- In a medium pot with a lid, add washed brown rice, water and vegetable powder. Put on lid and bring to a boil. When the brown rice starts to boil, turn down heat to a low simmer and cook for about 30-40 minutes or until the rice in tender and all the liquid is absorbed. (By all means you can use white rice for this recipe as well. However the ratio for white rice is 1 cup rice for 1 cup water and cook for about 12-15 minutes or until all the liquid is absorbed) Turn off the burner.
- Remove lid from the rice pot and use fork to fluff rice. Create a well by clearing a little spot at the bottom of the rice pot. Place in olive oil and turn the stove burner on to medium heat and add the garlic and cook just until aromatic and then stir the rice and add salt and pepper to taste and toss until all of the grains of rice are glossy. Turn off the burner and add the lemon zest, garbanzo beans (chickpeas) and parsley into the rice and mix well.
- Serve Vegan Chickpea Lemon Rice while hot. Garnish with parsley and fresh lemon slices. Enjoy!
I'm finally taking a break from Photoshop after having a complete meltdown yesterday when I found out that Apple updated their photo application making all of the files I'd been working on unusable! Never saw that one coming and they tell me that 3rd party vendors "should have their products compatible within 3 months"! Are you kidding me? This is not good but at least I'm making myself happy looking at your food.
I was just mentioning on another blog that I haven't made rice in ages and it's time to get back to it. This looks like a really interesting one and I love the lemons in there (yup, we went from having the heat on in the house to a heat wave outside - go figure). I had no idea that you could freeze lemons. Usually they're on sale 3 at a time so I'm making use of that little tip. Thank you!
Your boys must be the luckiest boys in town. I'd happily study if it meant submitting my food orders to you!!
We also seem to be in sync! I literally just made a chickpea rice for a Middle Easter pulled lamb!!! I wish there was a way to upload photos 🙂 Pinning away! N x
What a beautiful, vegan dish Bobbi! I am craving rice now! Shared and pinned of course!
It's such a treat visiting you here! It's been far too long. Your food photography is gorgeous! I think you should have a cookbook one day, I'd be there to buy a copy. Love this recipe, the flavors of lemons and chickpeas would be a new favorite for us. I will try this one BAM, short and easy is how we roll these days:) xx
Yum! This looks so delicious and fresh! Love all the easy rice dish variations too!
Wow thanks for all these rice dishes,something that I really need as we are big rice eaters here
A steady supply of delicious food works even with daughters, Bobbie! 🙂 At least, it works with mine!
I love lemons and this rice looks so fabulous! I did not know that lemons could be frozen though - so thanks so much for that info!
Ohhh, tasty brown rice! This looks so good! Perfect side dish or full meal since it has satisfying chickpeas in your recipe! Thanks for the tips on freezing lemons. I have a bunch right now!
What a lovely protein packed vegetarian meal! I love how it looks like! Awesome photos! I'm gonna do it tomorrow 😀
Gorgeous rice! The perfect meal for anytime:)
I never knew I can freeze lemons! Prices of lemons are increasing here, so I might buy and freeze some as I use lemons so often!
An inspirational post , I'm off to make some for dinner
Rice is an absolute staple in our house, we eat it almost daily. looks like a great recipe that I must try!
My asian licking gonna lovin it all the way...
Wow looks so yummy! Lovely photos and these have got me hungry now at midnight! You've got some hungry boys 🙂 loved reading your post!
That's a lovely rice dish and I think the lemon in it would really give it a Greek flavour. I never buy that lemon juice in the yellow bottle. Fortunately lemons are available here all year. I do prefer though, when it's lemon season and I know I'm buying local produce xx
What a great dish! This rice really would make a wonderful side with so many things. I am always thinking peas in rice but never chickpea and it makes total sense when I think about how I add beans to pasta these days to bulk it up in a healthier way. Can't wait to see how you pair this up. And I'm with you about cooking the rice. I always use less water than instructed whether in my rice cooker or cooking it on the stovetop.
Since rice +/- lentils/chickpeas et al play such a big part of my menus, cooking Middle-Eastern often and having rice about 4x a week - have made similar forever: but not with a stress on lemons as such! Dying to try now as quickly as possible!! Can taste it Bobbi 🙂 !!
Hello Eha, thank you dear. This dish is really an inspiration from the Greek greasy restaurant spoon lemon rice soup that we used to love. Same concept for a little lighter and brighter. Wishing you a super Sunday!
I made your Kimchi fried rice and it was delicious. I'm going to make this one tonight . it is just right after having had a heavy meal last night.
Nobody makes rice the way you do, Bobbi! I love lemon and especially at this time of year. I didn't know I could freeze tem and I'll definitely be doing that fom now on. Thanks for the tip. I think this is my fav rice dish of all - perfect in it's simplicity 🙂
Good luck cracking the whip with your boys, lol. Take good care.
I love all the ingredients in this–and I just started growing parsley in a pot, so I'm all set to make this! 🙂
Wish I had thought to freeze my limes before we left for Europe!
I've never frozen lemons! I'm going to have to try that. And I need to start studying so I can enjoy this wonderful looking dish. 😉
I have been incorporating more chicpeas into our diet so this is a perfect recipe.
Thanks Bam.
Have a super weekend.
🙂 Mandy xo
I love meals to have on hand in the pantry. This would make both of us happy and it looks so good!