Crouton Substitute!!

I've grown to LOVE my salads. The beautiful green leaves loaded with onion, pepper, cranberries, and every other veggie combination you could think of. But goodness gracious, did I miss my croutons. The crunchy aspect to my salads made me so happy, and I'll admit that if I got a salad bar at a restaurant, I would always totally cheat by getting those tasty, crunchy treats. I will say though, I have never bought a box at the grocery store. They'd be gone in a day.  But I found this awesome, healthy, and flavorful replacement from Dani Spies! 

YUCK! Don't eat these. Bleeeghhh.

When you eat garbanzo beans, you're getting lots of fiber, they help control blood sugar when eaten regularly, and your serving contains about 11-14 grams of protein.

Roasted Garbanzo Beans
Ingredients:
3 15 oz cans garbanzo beans
1 1/2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
3 teaspoons curry powder
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons salt

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2.. In a bowl, mix the curry powder, ground ginger, ground cinnamon, and the salt.

3. Open the garbanzo beans, drain, and rinse under cold water. Dump onto a towel and dry off very well (if they're moist with water, they won't roast well).

Rinse them off!

Dry, dry, dry!

4. In a bowl, mix the garbanzo beans and olive oil. Once mixed, sprinkle in the spice mixture.  Mix & distribute to all the garbanzo beans. Put beans on rimmed baking sheet.

Before they get roasted! Look at those yummy spices.

5. Bake for 50 minutes. The longer, the crunchier. If you like the outside crunchy & the center to be softer, only bake for 45 minutes.

All done!

Look how golden and crunchy!!

6. Store in an air-tight container.

I store in a mason jar with a lid.

7. Use in your trail mix, add to your salads (my favorite) or eat them alone!

The great thing about recipes like this is if you don't want to use Indian spices like curry powder & ginger, try something else like basil & other great Italian seasonings! Either way, you have a crunchy & tasty crouton replacement for your salads!

-Lacey