After cooking up some chickpeas last week and throwing them in a jar I swear they would taunt me from the top shelf of the fridge every time I opened the door: “You better use us up before we spoil!” There’s nothing like guilt of something going bad because you never got around to using it right? Well I had been craving a mock tuna salad sandwich for a while now, boy they are good. To be truly honest, I don’t remember exactly what tuna tastes like, but this is delicious. And much less fishy, for obvious reasons (like, no fish). I hesitated even calling it a mock tuna salad because I don’t feel the need to eat things that taste like or are reminiscent of meat, it’s just really good and the best way to describe it. “Chickpea Mash Sandwich” isn’t the feel I’m going for, you know?
This is something I was able to whip up in my tiny food processor in less than 5 minutes. I also proceeded to devour it in probably just as much time, or less.

Vegan “Tuna” Salad Sandwich

Ingredients (for the “tuna salad”)

• 1 cup chickpeas
• 3 tbsp vegenaise
• 1 tbsp spicy mustard
• 1 tbsp relish
• 1/2 small tomato, diced
• sprinkle of pepper
• 2 pieces of marinated artichoke hearts (optional & delicious)

Now here’s the really hard part: put it all in a food processor and turn it on. I did the chickpeas and vegenaise first and then added the rest and turned it back on, but to be real, I don’t know why I did that and I’m sure it doesn’t matter much. But if your gut is telling you to do the same, by all means go for it!

If you don’t have a food processor you can mash the chickpeas with a fork and mix in the ingredients. That’s what I used to do before I bought tiny, loud, vibrate-y food processor off a nice old couple in the local classefieds. Definitely worth the $10 investment! //end tangent

I ate mine on a torta roll from Costco (my favorite!) with some romaine lettuce and the other half of the tomato (sliced). It’s been so long since I’ve had this that I’m a little sad I’ve been missing out for the last couple of years and need to put it into heavy rotation for lunch in order to make up for it.

Now, I know not everyone is a vegetarian or a vegan, but it’s a really good sandwich either way. Don’t let the great omnivore/herbivore divide deter you from trying out this quick and healthy sandwich.