Spinach with chickpeas

Name: Spinach with Chickpeas
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 30 min
Ingredients: 500 g/ 10.5 oz cooked chickpeas; 500 g/ 10.5 oz frozen spinach; 4 garlic cloves; 2-3 Slices of dry white bread; 1 tablespoon 5 g ground cumin; 1 tablespoon 5 g ground coriander; 1 tablespoon 5 g sweet paprika; 1 teaspoon 2 g of chili flakes (ground); 60 ml/ 2 fl. oz. of ketchup; 60 ml/ 2 fl. oz. of apple cider vinegar; 1 cup 236ml/ 8 fl. oz. of extra virgin olive oil

Espinacas con garbanzos

A small tapas serving of Spinach with chickpeas sits on a table beside a small glass of beer.

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Spinach with Chickpeas or ‘Espinacas con garbanzos’ in Spanish is a quick and easy tapas recipe and a favorite of many throughout Andalusia. You’ll find it lovingly served in numerous tapas bars throughout Seville, with great care and dedication on display for such a humble dish.

The best thing about Spinach with chickpeas is it’s super-easy to make with only 6 key ingredients needed: Spinach, chickpeas, lots of extra virgin olive oil, garlic, sweet paprika, and salt (optional). Oh, and it’s vegan and super-delicious too!

Serving:

Tapas for 6 people

Ready In:

Prepare 15 minutes / cook 30 minutes

Skill Level:

Very Easy

Serve with:

Fresh bread

a chopping board sits with some garlic, chili flakes, bay leaves, and a plate of spices near some olive oil in a glass

About this spinach and chickpeas recipe

Chickpeas were originally brought to Spanish cuisine by Ancient Persian (modern Iran) traders who southern regions of the Mediterranean, now known as Andalusia.

This humble stew has evolved throughout the years, but the basic recipe has settled for just 6 ingredients needed to recreate this piece of culinary mastery.

You’ll notice the spice cumin is used in this dish. While you may not immediately associate cumin with Spanish cooking it’s integral to this tasty stew, and is actually one of the most used spices in Spain.

What you’ll need to make spinach with chickpeas

500 g/10.5 oz cooked chickpeas
500 g/10.5 oz frozen spinach
4 Garlic cloves
2-3 Slices of dry white bread
1 tablespoon (5 g) ground cumin
1 tablespoon (5 g) ground coriander
1 tablespoon (5 g) sweet paprika
1 Teaspoon (2 g) of chili flakes (ground)
60ml/ 2 fl. oz. of ketchup
60ml/ 2 fl. oz. of apple cider vinegar
Fresh water
1 cup (236ml/ 8 fl. oz.) of Extra virgin olive oil
Salt (optional)
Pinch ground black pepper (optional)

Equipment needed

1x 30cm/12-inch frying pan with deep sides (3 inches/8 cm)

Spinach with chickpeas is a vegan recipe and it’s easy to make and delicious every time. You can prepare it in under an hour and only need to use one large pot.

To make spinach with chickpeas, just follow the step-by-step instructions below in the recipe card section.

How to serve spinach with chickpeas

It’s most common to find this dish serves as a tapas where it will usually be served in a small earthenware dish around 6-8 inches in diameter. It’s almost always served with a few good-sized slices of fresh bread to soak up the delicious sauce flavors.

Optionally, spinach with chickpeas can be served as a delicious vegan main meal. We honestly make this dish around once a week during the winter and simply serve it straight from the cooking pot with some chunks of bread on the side.

Traditional ingredients for this recipe

Here in Spain, Spinach and chickpeas are traditionally made with as few as 6 ingredients. You’ll find different variations of this dish all over the country, with a dense population of spinach and chickpea aficionados based out of Seville in the southern region of Andalusia.

In Seville, you’ll find plenty of tapas bars and restaurants avidly pedaling the various forms of the recipe in tapas bars all over town.

Here, while rubbing shoulders with the locals of Seville’s tapas scene, you’ll hear distinct chatter of adding dried bread, almonds, and even tomatoes to bring new life to this incredibly diverse tapas dish.

Spinach with chickpeas is a fantastic tapas dish or main that’s quick and easy to make at home.

Chickpeas

Besides tasting awesome, chickpeas are little mineral and protein superheroes! Chickpeas provide plenty of the nutrients we need.

One cup of chickpeas provides:

269 calories.
14 grams of protein.
4 grams of fat.
12 grams of dietary fiber.
80 milligrams (mg) of calcium.
4.74 mg of iron.
78.7 mg of magnesium.

Chickpeas are also packed with carbohydrates that slowly release energy after eating them. This makes them very filling and healthy for your gut too. Win-win!

Best chickpeas to use

For this recipe, we have used tinned or prepackaged chickpeas that were purchased from our local supermarket. They’re cheap and already prepared so they save a lot of time.

If using tinned chickpeas, you’ll just need to give them a good rinse with fresh water first before using them in the recipe.

If you’re using dried chickpeas, then allow some extra time to prepare the dried chickpeas.

First, soak the dried chickpeas in some clean fresh water overnight. The chickpeas will expand around twice their size so add around double the amount of water to chickpeas in a large bowl.
Next, drain them from the water and add them to a pan with some fresh water.
Cook them for around 2 hours for them to soften up. Alternatively, use a slow cooker or pressure cooker to prepare your chickpeas.

TOP TIP:

For dried chickpeas, every 1 cup of dried chickpeas makes 3 cups worth of cooked chickpeas. They expand quite a bit so make sure you use a pot big enough!

Spinach

Popeye knew it, as does every chef in Spain that Spinach is a superfood and is packed with nutrients and vitamins. For this recipe, we’re going to use frozen spinach. It’s cheap, easy to find, and easy to prepare.

Spinach nutritional fact (per 100-gram serving):

Just 7 calories.
0.86 grams of protein.
29.7 mg of calcium.
0.81 g of iron.
24 mg of magnesium.
167 mg of potassium.
141 micrograms (mcg) of vitamin A.
58 mcg of folate.

Frozen or fresh spinach? Which is healthier?

Honestly, if you’re buying fresh spinach, awesome! But if you are reaching for a bag of frozen spinach, that’s ok too. In fact, fresh spinach loses folate and vitamins quickly, whereas frozen spinach retains the nutrients that are frozen inside.

If your fresh spinach is more than a few days old, it’s likely to have already lost a fair amount of its nutritional value.

A bunch of spinach leaves is tied with a string and sits on a rustic paint-flecked background

A large bowl of cooked spinach sits on a kitchen countertop with some olive oil, garlic, and chickpeas sitting in the background

Sweet Paprika, Cumin & Ground Corriander

This simple yet ancient combination of spices has been used in middle eastern and northern African cuisines for centuries, and you’ll find all of these spices in any Spanish kitchen today.

Although some are definitely used more frequently than others, combining these three spices really adds to the nutty, warm, sweet flavor of this dish. I’d even go one step further and add a little ground chili flakes to bring a little welcome warmth to spinach with chickpeas.

Spanish Sweet Paprika (D.O. Pimentón De Murcia)

Sweet paprika (Pimentón in Spanish) from Spain originates from the Murcia region (Pimentón De Murcia) alongside the Mediterranean Sea, where the Bola variety of peppers are dried in the sun and give the pimenton a sweet flavor once ground.

To get a little more kick from your sweet paprika, give it a slight toasting in a dry pan for a minute or two. This really helps to bring the smoky sweet flavors out in the paprika.

Cumin

Cumin is a bit of a wildcard for Spanish cooking. It is used extensively throughout the southern region of Andalusia and within the Mediterranean basin, however, the humble spice is often left to collect dust on the spice rack in most other parts of Spain.

Cumin really works its magic in Spinach with chickpeas and provides a subtle nutty spiced flavor to the dish.

A plate of Ground corriander spice sits on a kitchen worktop with a small glass of olive oil sitting in the background

Ground Corriander/Cilantro

Also known as Ground Cilantro or ‘Cilantro en polvo’ in Spanish, this handy and flavorsome spice is made using the ground seeds of the coriander plant and used in Spanish cooking sparingly.

Ground corriander falls into the warm/sweet spice category and brings a nutty, smoked wood undertone to this dish that when paired with chickpeas, really enhances the flavor of the dish.

If you’re looking to really pair down the spices, you can make Spinach with Chickpeas using just paprika (Pimentón). Just add a little more and you’re good to go.

Optional ingredients for spinach with chickpeas

Visiting Seville and frequenting the tapas bars, it’s not uncommon for you to be served Spinach with chickpeas as a popular tapa a few times in one evening. However, somehow, they’re all totally different!

Spinach with chickpeas is an incredibly diverse dish, and over the years people have added or subtracted ingredients at leisure in quest of making the ultimate recipe!

Nowadays, there is a huge amount of variation, with some dishes using as little as 5 ingredients, and others using far more! If you’re new to Spanish cooking, this is a fantastic dish to start with, and don’t be afraid of experimenting!

A narrow street scene of Seville with a couple navigating the streets

Sun-dried tomatoes

Add sun-dried tomatoes in the last 2-3 minutes of the cooking process to add a tangy-sweet flavor to this dish. To finish, and really complement each flavor, squeeze half a lemon worth of juice over the dish once it’s finished cooking.

Almonds

Using a combination of fresh diced tomatoes and almonds works wonders with this dish and just adds another layer of nutty, smoked flavor to it. If you’re adding almonds, dice them finely and give them a little toasting in a dry pan before adding them to the base sauce mix.

You can add the diced tomatoes when you add the spinach back to the pan. Just give it all a little extra time to simmer down and remove the excess water released from the tomatoes.

Aubergine

Aubergine (Berenjena in Spanish) can also be added easily to this dish and bring with it a delicious sweetness if they’re slightly roasted and caramelized first. Of course, roasting aubergines will add a bit more time to the recipe, but it’s well worth experimenting with.

Substitute Spinach with Kale or Chard

Not a fan of Popeye’s favorite food? No worries, substitute spinach with your preferred green leafy vegetable and give it a try. This dish works really well with kale or chard, and I’ve even seen people throw in a few handfuls of fresh rocket to give the dish a delicious peppery kick.

How to Make This Recipe

a few small bowls spinach with chickpeas sits beside some fresh parlsey and lemon wedges.

Ingredients

Method (step-by-step)

500 g/ 10.5 oz cooked chickpeas
500 g/ 10.5 oz frozen spinach
4 garlic cloves
1/3 loaf of a frozen baguette
1 tablespoon (5 g) ground cumin
1 tablespoon (5 g) ground coriander
1 tablespoon (5 g) sweet paprika
1 teaspoon (2 g) of chili flakes (ground)
60ml/ 2 fl. oz. of ketchup
60ml/ 2 fl. oz. of apple cider vinegar
1 cup (236ml/ 8 fl. oz.) of extra virgin olive oil
Salt (optional)
Pinch ground black pepper (optional)

Method (step-by-step)

Step 1 – Prepare the Spinach

First, take the frozen Spinach and add it to the pan and let it simmer until it defrosts. This should take around 15 minutes on medium-high heat. Optionally, you can defrost the spinach in the microwave which takes around 5 minutes.

Step 2 – Prepare the sauce

Fry the sliced garlic and a little olive oil in a pan until it becomes golden. Once done, remove from the pan and set aside for use later.
Increase the heat of the pan to high and with the pan hot, add the spinach and grated bread (or breadcrumbs) to the mixture and a little more oil.
Next, reduce the heat to medium and add the spices, chili flakes, ketchup, apple cider vinegar, toasted bread, and garlic. Stir thoroughly until you have a paste, then add some water to allow it to be more of a liquid/soup consistency.

Step 3 – Add the Chickpeas and Spinach

Add half a cup of water, the remaining olive oil and add the cooked chickpeas and stir through.
Note: If you want a more soup-like texture, add a little more water and let it simmer on low heat for an additional 10 minutes
Finally, check the flavoring and add some cracked black pepper and salt to season.

Step 4 – To Serve

Typically, spinach with chickpeas is served as a tapa, however, this dish can easily become a vegan-friendly main meal. Either way, serve it with a few slices of fresh bread and you’ve got a hearty and healthy dish that’s full of flavor!