In my opinion, “crispy chickpeas” never lived up to their promise, and were a constant disappointment when I made them whether they were deep-fried or roasted in the oven. They often came out too soggy and chewy, rather than truly crispy. So I set out to see if the air fryer did a better job. And I can confidently say, it does the best job I’ve ever witnessed of making actually crisp chickpeas. The high heat, circulating at a super-fast speed, dries out the chickpeas so they’re almost dehydrated. Be careful, or you’ll start eating these and wake up 5 minutes later to an empty bowl.
During testing, I found that different brands of canned chickpeas “fry” up at wildly different rates. Some brands only took 6 minutes to get crisp, while other brands, where the chickpeas were comparatively larger in size and meatier, took almost double that. Hence, the range in cooking time for this recipe. Start out with your favorite go-to brand and cook them for 6 minutes. If they’re not crisp enough after that, continue cooking in 2-minute intervals until they are. Then you’ll know the correct amount of time for that specific brand.
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