Chickpea Peanut Salad – Instant Pot Protein Avocado Salad
This Chickpea Peanut Salad – Instant Pot Protein Avocado Salad is my go-to for my protein fix or anything else in the Indian food realm. This salad takes just a few minutes to put together and is super satisfying.
Equipment
- Electric Pressure Cooker
Ingredients
- 1 cup chickpea, dry (kabuli chana, rinsed and soaked overnight in 3 cups water)
- 1 cup raw unsalted peanuts (with skin or skinless)
- 3 cups water (divided) (to pressure cook chickpea and peanuts)
- 1/4 onion, large (1/2 cup chopped)
- 1 tomato, medium (3/4 cup chopped)
- 1 avocado (3/4 cup chopped)
- 1/2 cucumber
- 1 serrano pepper, small (hari mirch) (3/4 tsp chopped)
- 1/4 cup cilantro leaves (finely chopped)
- 1 tsp mango powder (amchur/amchoor powder)
- 1 tsp red chili powder (cayenne pepper)
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp black salt (kaala namak)
- 1 tsp lemon juice (or more if you like it more tangy)
Instructions
Prep
- Rinse and soak the dry chickpea overnight in 3 cups water. Discard the water when you are about to cook.
- When you are ready to cook, place the soaked chickpea in the inner pot. Add in 2 cups water to the inner pot.
- Place the trivet in the pot over the chickpea. In a small stainless-steel bowl place the raw peanuts with 1 cup water. Place this bowl over the trivet.
- Close the lid on the instant pot and select manual. Pressure cook the chickpea and peanuts for 15 minutes. Let the pressure release naturally for 10 minutes and then quick release the pressure.
- While the pressure is releasing in the instant pot chop onions, serrano peppers and cilantro leaves finely. Additionally, core and dice the tomatoes into 1/4-inch dice, dice the avocado and cucumber to 1/4-inch diced.
- When 10 minutes are up release the pressure, discard the water from the pot and keep the chickpea and peanuts aside.
Assemble the salad
- In a large bowl that will hold the salad, toss together the boiled chickpea, and peanuts. Further add in chopped onions, tomatoes, avocado, cucumber, serrano peppers, and cilantro leaves. Furthermore, add in amchur powder, red chili powder, salt, black salt, and lemon juice. Mix well and serve fresh.
Notes
- I used dried Kabuli chana also known as garbanzo beans for this recipe. I soaked the chickpea overnight in water, discarded the water and pressure cooked it first. Packaged dried chickpea can be bought in any local supermarket in the bean’s aisle. I buy mine from the Indian grocery store.
- You can also use canned chickpea…although I have not used it. Make sure to discard all the water from the can. If you do decide to use canned chickpea/ garbanzo beans then a rule of thumb is approximately 1 cup dried beans equals to 3 cups cooked canned beans. So you can use 3 cups of canned beans for this recipe. If you use canned chickpea then you don’t need to pressure cook it initially as the recipe demands. You will need to pressure cook the peanuts.
- On a scale of 1 to 5 in terms of spice levels I would place this dish at 3, with 1 being low and 5 being high. So you can reduce, eliminate or increase the serrano peppers and reduce the red chili powder as per your spice tolerance.