Spinach and chickpeas (espinacas con garbanzos)
Chickpeas and spinach in a garlicky, smoky paprika sauce thickened the old Spanish way with fried bread, scooped up with more toast, a Seville tapas-bar favorite that makes a great dinner.
- 30 min total
- 25 min hands-on
- Follow-a-recipe easy
- Serves 4
- About $2.91 a serving
- 520 calories
- Vegan
- Dairy-free
Dolly says: Read the steps once before you start. Everything goes smoother after that.
Ingredients
For 4 servings.
- 5 slices sourdough bread, divided
- 4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
- 1 cup vegetable broth
- 2 cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed
- 2 packages baby spinach
From your pantry
- ¼ cup olive oil, divided
- 1½ tsp ground cumin
- 2 tsp smoked paprika
- 1 pinch red pepper flakes (optional)
- ¾ tsp salt
- 1 tbsp red wine vinegar
Each serving has about 520 calories, 21 g protein, 67 g carbs and 20 g fat, and costs about $2.91 at typical US grocery prices. Both are estimates from what the recipe uses.
Missing something?
- No sourdough bread? French bread works.
- No baby spinach? Kale or arugula works.
Steps
Tap an underlined word for a quick explanation.
Tear 1 of the bread into small pieces, about the size of a fingernail.
Slice. Slicing means cutting food into flat pieces of about the same thickness. Even slices cook evenly, so none are raw while others burn.
How you’ll know: Lay a few side by side: they’re close to the same thickness from one end to the other.
Heat 3 tablespoons of the oil in a large over medium heat. Add the bread and garlic and cook, stirring, about 3 minutes, until both are .
Skillet. A skillet is a frying pan: wide and flat with low, sloped sides. The shape lets steam escape, so food browns instead of stewing.
How you’ll know: It’s the pan you’d fry an egg in, and a 10 or 12 inch one handles most recipes.
Golden brown. Golden brown is the color of good toast, somewhere between yellow and light brown. It means the outside is cooked and crisp but not burnt.
How you’ll know: It looks like toast and smells toasty; dark brown with a bitter smell means it went too far.
Medium heatTimer: 3 min
Dolly’s tip: Keep them moving. Garlic goes from golden to bitter quickly.Stir in the cumin, smoked paprika and pepper flakes for 20 seconds, then pour in the broth right away.
Medium heat
Dolly’s tip: Paprika burns in seconds in hot oil, so have the broth ready to pour.Mash the bread into the broth with the back of a fork until it into a thick sauce.
Melt. Melting means gently heating something solid, like butter or cheese, until it turns liquid. Low or medium heat keeps it from browning or burning.
How you’ll know: It’s smooth and liquid, and butter may foam a little but hasn’t turned brown.
Medium heat
Add the chickpeas and salt and 5 minutes.
Simmer. Simmering means keeping a liquid just below a boil, with small bubbles rising gently. It cooks food evenly and lets a sauce thicken without scorching on the bottom.
How you’ll know: Small, lazy bubbles break the surface every second or so, and nothing is churning.
Medium heatTimer: 5 min
Add the spinach a handful at a time, stirring, until it all , about 3 minutes.
Wilt. Wilting means cooking leafy greens just until they go soft and collapse. Greens shrink a lot, so a big pile of spinach becomes a small handful, and that’s normal.
How you’ll know: The leaves turn soft and deep green and slump into the pan, usually within a minute or two.
Medium heatTimer: 3 min
Stir in the vinegar, then taste and add salt if it needs it.
Toast the other 4 slices of bread, them with the last tablespoon of oil, and serve alongside for scooping.
Drizzle. Drizzling means pouring a thin, slow stream over the top of something. A thin stream spreads a little flavor a long way.
How you’ll know: You see thin lines across the food, not a puddle collecting underneath.
Plan this in Dollop, and get the grocery list
Dollop puts this dinner on a night that suits your week, lists only what you still need to buy, and walks you through each step while you cook.
