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Super Simple Pumpkin Chickpea Salad

Super Simple Pumpkin Chickpea Salad

This Super Simple Pumpkin and Chickpea Salad can be a meal in its own right. The chickpeas, seeds and goats cheese give a boost of protein, the avocado and adding a salad dressing adds good fats. Together, they make the salad more filling.

Ingredients

  • cut up a heap of pumpkin (any sort will do) into small cubes. (I had about 1/4 of small jap pumpkin)
  • 1-2 tbsp raw honey
  • Olive or coconut oil
  • Salt & Pepper to season
  • a heap of salad greens (choose what your kids like and add a few they don’t – exposure is the name of the game)
  • 1 x 400g can chickpeas drained
  • 1 avocado, diced
  • as much goats cheese as you want (you could also use feta if you prefer)
  • good sprinkling of pumpkin seeds
  • good sprinkling of sunflower seeds

(I serve this salad up without dressing because 1 of our kids doesn’t like dressing, plus it also means leftovers stay fresh enough to have the next day for lunch).

Method

  1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees
  2. Lay your pumpkin cubes out on a baking tray
  3. Drizzle a good glug of oil over them, then the honey and sprinkle / grind on salt and pepper. Shake the tray around to coat the pumpkin. This is a great activity to get the kids to use their hands to mix it around
  4. Pop into the oven and bake for 20-30 mins until soft and a little browned/black
  5. Allow pumpkin to cool
  6. Cut up your salad greens and place in a big bowl
  7. Throw the pumpkin on top, then add chickpeas, avocado, goats cheese and the seeds
  8. Toss lightly – another good activity for the kids (with clean hands) to turn salad around

Serve salad. You can make a simple salad dressing by following the formula below:

  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 tbsp of acidity ingredient – any sort of vinegar, lemon, grapefruit, lime
  • you can add 1-2 tsp of another flavour – dijon mustard, seeded mustard, sugar
  • shake all the ingredients in a jar

Mine and Rilien’s (our 10yo son) favourite dressing with this salad is olive oil, with apple cider vinegar and 1 tsp seeded mustard.

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