The Incredibly Affordable And 'Bloody Delicious' Pantry Staple Gordon Ramsay Always Keeps Stocked

Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay may be best known for complex dishes like his multi-layered beef Wellington made with beef tenderloin, mushroom duxelles, and Parma ham wrapped in puff pastry, but even he has some simpler go-to recipes that rely on affordable pantry staples. One of these ingredients is garbanzo beans, aka chickpeas (these two names for the same bean reflect different cultural backgrounds). Ramsay uses these beans in a plethora of his recipes, from hummus to salads to a simple snack when roasted and even as a stuffing for chicken.

"[I]t's a staple that is incredibly cheap and bloody delicious," he told Men's Journal in a September 2025 interview. Similarly, in a 2013 Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything), he listed chickpeas as an affordable protein option if you're cooking on a budget. Talk about affordable: A can of these beans will run you as little as 80 cents for a conventional brand, and organic versions can cost less than $1.25. Uncooked chickpeas are even less expensive at about $1.99 a pound, with 1 cup of dried chickpeas yielding about 3 cups of cooked legumes. Over the years, Ramsay has opined about its attributes and uses.

To start, Gordon Ramsay has weighed in on the dried-versus-canned chickpea debate. "It is always better to soak and cook your beans from dried, as the flavor and texture will be better... That said, canned beans are very useful standbys, especially when you are cooking on the spur of the moment," he wrote in his cookbook "Gordon Ramsay's Home Cooking." He has discussed chickpeas' protein-rich character (1 cup contains 14.5 grams of protein, besides other beneficial nutrients) and how best to build flavor with them. "Chickpeas can be bland on their own, but they take spicy flavors really well," he wrote in the same cookbook. In his AMA, he suggested chiles and garlic work well with this legume.

Ramsay often uses chickpeas in his vegan and vegetarian recipes, including as part of a vegan burger, since, he has said, the legume's texture makes a good replacement for ground beef. The chef also uses the liquid chickpeas come packed in (or what's left over from cooking them at home), called aquafaba. Besides being used in place of egg whites in cocktails, Ramsay has suggested using it for making dairy-free pasta and as a replacement for egg whites in desserts such as chocolate mousse. Take a page out of Ramsay's (cook)book and reach for chickpeas for an easy and cheap protein that offers a whole lot more. It's just one of Ramsay's many cooking tips worth utilizing.