There is some debate in the Epi office over what Americans are doing with all the canned chickpeas they're buying. I think you're all making shortcut hummus. My colleague Anya Hoffman thinks you're more likely tossing crispy chickpeas into your assorted salads and grain bowls. And Emily Johnson is convinced those cans are being emptied into soups and stews.
Regardless, chickpea production and consumption is on the rise so we all agreed that it was time for a canned chickpea taste test. I gathered 12 nationally available brands and led my colleagues through a series of tastings as we determined which beans had the best flavor, texture, and versatility. Our winner, Westbrae Natural Organic Garbanzo Beans took every title. But if your store doesn't carry it, we have a runner-up that's equally good (and might be a few bucks cheaper). For our methodology and the full list of chickpeas we tasted, scroll to the bottom of the page. First up, more on the rankings!
Our Favorite Canned Chickpeas: Westbrae Natural
I'm told that some people choose to rinse canned chickpeas and put them straight into a salad, unadulterated, which I used to think was totally bonkers. Could a canned chickpea possibly taste good without being roasted until crisp, or braised in garlicky oil? Turns out the answer is yes. I was surprisingly pleased by the straight-out-of-the-can flavor and texture of our winning beans, so if you're one of those rinse-and-go chickpea lovers, you're in luck. Westbrae's chickpeas were exceptionally creamy with an earthy (and for lack of a better descriptor, bean-y) flavor. Those attributes were in stark contrast to most of the other chickpeas on the list, which were too often hard—some to the point of being decried as unpleasantly "crunchy" by several tasters.
Westbrae's chickpeas contained the lowest amount of sodium of the "low-sodium" brands in the line-up, but the flavor didn't suffer for it. Other brands were called "insipid," "watery," and "metallic," while Westbrae was deemed savory and, according to Anya, "tasted like a bean should." And once we cooked them—and salted them to taste—they were the clear bean king.
BUY IT: Westbrae Natural Organic Low-Sodium Garbanzo Beans, $2.50 per (15-ounce) can on VitaCost or $42 for a case of 12 (15-ounce) cans at Amazon
The Best Non-Organic Chickpeas: Bush's
If you can't source Westbrae in your local market and don't want to buy it online, you should have no problem spotting Bush's beans on your grocer's shelves. (Note: Bush's does offer an organic option, but we weren't able to source it for this test.) Regardless, their regular beans were both well-seasoned and creamy when eaten plain out of the can, and rose quickly in the rankings.
The strength of Bush's chickpeas' flavor was most likely due in part to their high sodium content—the highest of the line-up. But when we cooked the top five beans, Bush's kept its spot in the rankings while some other sodium-heavy brands slid quickly down. I added almost no salt to the Bush's beans when I sautéed them—they really don't need it—so if you're using them, be judicious with your own seasoning. They're a touch chewier than our winner, but we'd eat them just as often in as many ways as we can think of to cook a chickpea.
BUY IT: Bush's Best Garbanzos, $1 per (16-ounce) can from Target
What We Were Looking For
We set out to find the best canned chickpeas (or garbanzo beans or chick peas—I'm still unclear on why most of these brands choose to divide chickpea into two words, but when I started sourcing products for this story I had a serious case of the Mandela Effect) we could buy at the market. Previous tests of this nature have shown me that tasters always gravitate towards brands with a higher level of sodium. (Hey, we like bold flavor.) So, while we didn't narrow the test to any specific level of sodium, I did arrange it so that tasters would sample the products in a gradual order from least amount of sodium to highest (more on that below).
As a result, we could more acutely judge each bean's worthiness without the siren call of salt clouding our judgment. Our eventual winner came from the group of low-sodium contenders—and in fact had the lowest sodium of those brands. If salt is a major concern for you, however, our favorite brand of "No Salt Added" beans is Eden Organic.
The best chickpeas had to be creamy straight out of the can so you could use them to add quick fiber and protein to a salad or to turn into homemade hummus. But they also had to have a toothsome texture. I'm of the opinion that chickpeas can never be overcooked, but a few of our tasters found some brands too "mushy" for their liking. Great chickpeas must also have discernible flavor—you know, bean-flavored—and no off flavors (some of those detected were "almost fishy," "weirdly funky," and "like dirt").
When cooked, the chickpeas had to retain their good flavor, hold on to some of that interior texture, and—in the case of crispy chickpeas—develop a crispy shell.
How We Tested
Epi staffers tasted drained and rinsed chickpeas in order ranging from the lowest amount of sodium to the highest. Arranging the beans in this order was crucial—eating a high-sodium bean followed by a low-sodium bean might have led us to inaccurately give the low-sodium bean a deduction in flavor.
After we had eliminated any beans deigned flavorless or unpleasant, I took the top five beans (which ranged from a no-salt-added variety to the highest-sodium contender on our list), sautéed them with garlic and rosemary until the outer hull started to turn crisp, and salted them to taste. All products were tasted blind with no distinction made between organic and non-organic brands during testing.
The Other Chickpeas We Tasted
- Brad's Organic No-Salt-Added Garbanzo Beans
- Brad's Organic Garbanzo Beans
- Eden Organic No-Salt-Added Garbanzo Beans
- Goya Chick Peas
- Goya Organics Low-Sodium Chick Peas
- Progresso Chick Peas
- Simply Balanced Organic Low-Sodium Garbanzo Beans
- Trader Joe's Garbanzo Beans
- Trader Joe's Organic Garbanzo Beans
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