The Ultimate Budget Smart Food: Beans and Garbanzo Bean Salad

On an average week, I try and keep my grocery bill around $50 for the week.  Sometimes I keep this goal and other times I go above and beyond that amount.  It is very important to me that I eat high quality delicious food but I try and do that as budget friendly as possible.  I have to admit that my grocery bill this week was more around $70 and so I am already planning out how to improve that for next week.  


For a long time I was not much of a bean person but in the past year I have experimented a lot with different varieties of beans and have been quite happy with the results.  Some of my favorite recipes have bean my yummy black bean burgers, lentil loaf, and finally lentil soup.  If you are looking to save money by adding beans to your diet, I highly suggest buying dried beans rather than ones already cooked in the cans. 


 First of all beans taste much better when you make them yourself and secondly you can save a lot of money this way!  I normally spend anywhere from $1.50 to $2.50 on a package of beans that contains four cups of dried beans.  You have to soak the dried beans for a few hours and during this time they usually double or triple in size, turning one cup of dried beans into three cups of cooked beans.  


One of my favorite recipes to make when my family comes over for dinner is my black bean burgers with home made french fries and salad.  I can feed my whole family with room for seconds with around $2 worth of beans.  I had the above garbanzo bean salad for lunch today and it was delicious and filling!  I made garbanzo beans for the very first time this week.  I made around three cups of them and have been topping them on my salads for lunch and dinner time.  They are much cheaper than nuts (I love nuts but they are so expensive!) and are a perfect salad topper filled with lots of protein.  On average one cup of cooked beans has around 15 grams of protein.


Well, enough talk, below I will walk you through how to make garbanzo beans from scratch and reveal how I made this delicious salad!  Enjoy!


Garbanzo Bean Salad:


2 cups of dried garbanzo beans
6 cups of water
1 cup of mixed lettuce greens (organic preferably)
1 carrot shredded
1/2 avocado diced
1/2 tomato diced
1/8 onion diced
pinch of sea salt


Directions:
1.  Soak 2 cups of dried garbanzo beans in 6 cups of water over night (around     8 hours).  They should triple in size.
2.  Cook the soaked garbanzo beans in a large pot with 4 - 6 more cups of 
     water.  To cook them you first need to bring the pot to a boil.  After it
    has  reached the boiling point, turn down the heat and allow the garbanzo 
     beans to cook on low heat for 1 - 2 hours.  They will be ready when they 
     are soft and easy to eat.  This will make 4 -6 cups of cooked garbanzo 
     beans.


Salad Directions:
1.  Wash off your lettuce, dry it, and put it in a large bowl.  
2.  Add in your diced onion, tomato, avocado, shredded carrot, and cooked 
    garbanzo beans.
3. Top the salad with some sea salt and your favorite salad dressing.  Enjoy!


I hope you enjoy this recipe!  By the way, what are you doing this weekend?  Last weekend I went to Chattanooga and had a great time!

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