Homemade Aquafaba - The VEGAN Egg - Love is in my Tummy (2024)

Homemade Aquafaba – learn how to make the magical egg substitute using chickpea cooking liquid. VEGAN. Gluten Free.

Do you hate procrastinators? Then you should absolutely hate me! Because I have inflicted upon myself these past few days nothing but unprejudiced hatred for having waitedalmost a year to get started on Aquafaba!

It’s been exactly oneyear since I found out about the wonder that is Aquafaba. I had it added to my ‘to-do’ list, but as I kept ticking things off that list, the aquafaba stayed on, permanently it seemed, simply because I was too frightened to give it a try.

I did save the aquafaba whenever I cooked chickpeas at home (which considering how much I love the thing was almost every other week!), but it got thrown down the sink every other week just the same, because I was too much of a coward. And ohhow I regret it now!

What is Aquafaba?

For those of you who are still wondering what Aquafaba is, here’s a quicklesson.

In Latin, Aqua means water and Faba means beans. One of the most recent and newest culinary discoveries (as recent as 2014), chickpea cooking liquid has been found to be an effective substitutein it’s ability to whip and hold air almost as effectively as an egg. Its uses have astounded everyone so much so that it has its own official site! There you’ll find tips, recipes, answers and more to all your questions (which, trust me, you’ll have a LOT of!).

Yes, I am talking about the liquid that comes along with chickpeas in a can, or the brownish liquid left behind after you’ve cooked chickpeas from scratch!

Last weekend I mustered up the courage to finally take this item off my to-do list, and spent all Friday baking VEGAN Macarons (you’ll see a recipe for it shortly here), an experiment that kept me up till 3 am on Saturday.

Those of you who’ve made macarons will know the joy of watching the ‘feet’ develop. It is nothing compared to the joy I experienced when the 7th batch of my eggless VEGAN Macarons started forming their feet instead of pooling in a puddle as the other batches did.

Homemade Aquafaba

You don’t always have to open up a can of chickpeas to get a little aquafaba. You can cook chickpeas at home yourself and make all the aquafaba you’ll ever need!

Step 1: Soak 1 cup of dried chickpeas overnight. Or here’s a shortcut to get it done in 2-3 hours.

Step 2: Drain out the water in which the chickpeas soaked in, rinse and drain again. Here’s why you should always soak your grains, beans and legumes.

Step 3: Add 2 cups of water and pressure cook the chickpeas. It’s a faster method that uses lesser liquid to cook.

Step 4: Cool completely with the chickpeas still in their cooking liquid. Drain and store theaquafaba in a clean, dry container for upto 2 weeks.

Notes:

1. Even though aquafaba looks brownish in color, it whips up to a pure white, just like egg whites do.
2. You do not taste the ‘chickpeas’ in the final product, not even slightly.
3. If you are not pressure cooking the chickpeas, you might end up with more cooking liquid, in which case, you’ll need to reduce the aquafaba on the stove to a thick, brownish and syrupy consistency. Homemade Aquafaba at it’s proper consistency should ‘feel’ like egg whites.

When you make these (which I really think you SHOULD!), be sure to SHARE YOUR PHOTOSwith me through Facebook,Instagramor Twitter. I’d love to see what you cook from here!