Aquafaba, the liquid from canned chickpeas, yields foolproof, egg-free mayonnaise and meringues and macaroons and lots of other stuff. But I cook dry chickpeas myself and so never have store-bought aquafaba on my hands. I prefer to cook dry beans to save money, to bypass the BPA (or BPS or BPF) in the plastic lining of cans—and to eat tastier beans.
Making aquafaba from dried chickpeas does work but you have to play around with the chickpea-to-water ratio and cooking times to render a consistency similar to the gel in canned chickpeas. As with fermentation, be prepared for some trial and error and don’t worry too much about any initial wonky results. They’ll bring you one step closer to great aquafaba.
Aqua-fad?
Long before I transformed chickpea broth into mayonnaise, I saved it to thicken and flavor soups and stews or I’d cook grains or other legumes in it. Nothing very revolutionary there. The revolution came in 2015, when a software engineer named Goose Wohlt thought to whip up the broth. Wohlt dubbed the frothy result “aquafaba,” combining the Latin aqua (water) with faba (bean). The egg replacer’s popularity went viral.
I’ve read (heated) online arguments that claim we should never consume the water beans have cooked in. I don’t have a PhD in beanology but by that argument, the beans themselves would also be inedible. They swam in that broth after all. Similarly, when I cook a pot of baked beans, the dry beans cook in a tomato base. I love those beans and have survived to mention them here.
So while the method of whipping bean broth into stiff peaks may be novel, the ingredient itself is not.
To soak or not to soak
I have always soaked beans before cooking. But for most beans, soaking overnight does not improve taste and saves little time. However, soaking them can improve digestibility, especially if you toss in a strip of kombu (a type of seaweed), which helps reduce gas-producing raffinose sugars present in beans.
How to cook chickpeas in a pressure cooker and render aquafaba
The following instructions apply to a pressure cooker. I’ve added a few notes on cooking chickpeas in a pot on the stove as well.
- Soak 1 cup of chickpeas in 6 cups of water for at least 6 hours or overnight. Do not add salt, baking soda or any seasonings that you might ordinarily add. Soak in water only.
- Cook the chickpeas in the soaking water in a pressure cooker, following the appliance manufacturer’s instructions, until done. If you cook the chickpeas in a pot on the stove, keep an eye on the water level. Replenish with water as necessary to ensure the chickpeas remain covered by an inch.
- If time allows, cool the cooked chickpeas completely to develop more starch in the broth.
- Place a colander in a large bowl and strain the cooked chickpeas. You will have approximately 4 cups of chickpea broth in the bowl.
- Return the broth to the pot and cook it down over a rolling boil for 20 to 30 minutes or until it becomes thick and turns a rich caramel color. You’ll render approximately 1 to 1 ¼ cups of aquafaba. Cool in the refrigerator until ready to use. As it cools, the consistency will gel somewhat.
- Store leftover aquafaba in a jar in the refrigerator for up to a week.
I cook lots of chickpeas for hummus, chana masala, salads, grain bowls, roasted chickpeas to eat by the handful or to add to roasted vegetables… Your chickpeas, like the chickpea broth, won’t go to waste!
What to cook with aquafaba
I like this Alton Brown aquafaba meringue recipe. Coconut macaroons made with aquafaba also taste delicious. But I think this ingredient really shines in mayonnaise. Even my carnivorous taste tester loves it.
Mayonnaise containing eggs literally whips up in two minutes using an immersion blender in a wide-mouth, tall jar. The egg-free, aquafaba version clocks in at eight minutes. I haven’t posted that recipe—yet. (This egg white replacer had to come first.) Buy you’ll find loads of aquafaba recipes online.
Transforming chickpea broth into aquafaba provides one more scrappy use for food that might otherwise go to waste and proves yet again that frugal cooking brings out both creativity and flavor.
Aquafaba rendered from home-cooked chickpeas
Equipment
- 1 pressure cooker If you don't have a pressure cooker, use a pot on the stove
Instructions
- Soak 1 cup of chickpeas in 6 cups of water for at least 6 hours or overnight. Do not add salt, baking soda or any seasonings that you might ordinarily add. Soak in water only.
- Cook the chickpeas in the soaking water in a pressure cooker, following the appliance manufacturer's instructions, until done. If you cook the chickpeas in a pot on the stove, keep an eye on the water level. Replenish with water as necessary to ensure the chickpeas remain covered by an inch.
- If time allows, cool the cooked chickpeas completely to develop more starch in the broth.
- Place a colander in a large bowl and strain the cooked chickpeas. You will have approximately 4 cups of chickpea broth in the bowl. Return the broth to the pot and cook it down over a rolling boil for 20 to 30 minutes or until it becomes thick and turns a rich caramel color. You'll render approximately 1 to 1 ¼ cups of aquafaba.
- Cool in the refrigerator until ready to use. As it cools, the consistency will gel somewhat. Store leftover aquafaba in a jar in the refrigerator for up to a week.
Very thankful for this guide! I have been cooking chickpeas from dried or even sprouting them when I make time. I normally always save the aquafaba and freeze in a mason jar. Thanks to your careful calculations I can now have more reliable results. I’ve had a craving for mayo to make a tofu egg salad. Thanks for sharing your beanology knowledge 😉 Looking forward to your mayo recipe one day.
This is a very helpful guide. I also soak and cook chickpeas often, on the stovetop, and I let the liquid evaporate a lot while they finish cooking, so it becomes thicker. I also keep the cooked chickpeas in the liquid in the fridge the next days. I think it helps to make the liquid more jelly-like.
Thank you for your experiments!! Have chickpeas, will try 🙂