Smoky Smashed Chickpea Tacos

Smoky Smashed Chickpea Tacos

These gut-healthy smoky smashed chickpea tacos are the kind of weeknight dinner that feels like a proper treat. The Spice Tailor Smoky BBQ Fajita kit does all the heavy lifting on flavour, and smashing the chickpeas with cornflour before you cook them gives you this incredible crispy, chunky texture we are genuinely obsessed with. Load them up with fresh jalapeño, tomato, avocado, and a spoon of plant-based crème fraîche and you have something that tastes way more effort than it is. We love this one for a Friday night, or honestly any night when you want tacos on the table in 40 minutes.

Cook: 40 min
Serves 6

Before You Start

  • Food processor or blender
  • Frying pan
  • Burger press or saucepan base (for pressing tacos)
  • Paper towel

Ingredients

  • 1 pack The Spice Tailor Smoky BBQ Fajita kit
  • 1 × 400g tin chickpeas
  • 3 tbsp cornflour
  • ½ a brown onion
  • 1 jalapeño
  • 2 tomatoes
  • 1 lime
  • Fresh coriander (for garnish)
  • 1 avocado
  • 6 tortillas (corn or flour)
  • Heaped tbsp of plant-based crème fraîche

Method

1

Prepare ingredients

  • Drain and rinse the chickpeas and allow to dry
  • Finely chop the onion, jalapeno, tomatoes and coriander
  • Slice the lime into wedges
  • Finely slice the avocado
2

Make pico de gallo

  • Stir together the onion, jalapeno, tomatoes, coriander, half the lime juice and The Spice Tailor Salsa in a bowl and season with salt and pepper
  • Set aside to mellow the onion
3

Cook the smoky chickpea filling

  • Add The Spice Tailor whole spices to the blender or food processor and blitz into a powder
  • Add the drained chickpeas along with The Spice Tailor Smoky BBQ Fajita sauce and a pinch of salt and blitz until smooth
  • Set aside
4

Cook tacos

  • Heat a frying pan over a medium high heat until hot
  • Drizzle a little oil into the pan and wipe with a paper towel so you have a very thin coating of oil on the pan
  • Add a heaped tbsp (roughly 1/6th) of the mixture to the centre of a tortilla
  • Flip into the pan, chickpea side down and press down with a burger press or saucepan base so the filling spreads evenly to the edges of the tortilla
  • Cook for a minute or two until the filling has formed a golden brown crust
  • Carefully flip the tortilla and cook for another minute
  • Remove from the pan, keep warm, and repeat with the remaining tortillas
5

Serve

  • Layer the sliced avocado, the crème fraîche and the pico de gallo, then fold tacos in half. Serve with lime wedges and enjoy!

Tips & Variations

  • Smash, don't mash: You want chunky, irregular pieces of chickpea, not a smooth paste. A fork or the back of a spoon is perfect. Rough edges mean more surface area, which means more crunch.
  • Don't crowd the pan: Cook the chickpeas in a single layer and give them time to crisp before stirring. Patience pays off here.
  • Warm your tortillas: A dry pan, 30 seconds each side. It makes a real difference to the texture and means everything holds together better when you load them up.

Why This Works

The trick is letting the chickpeas dry out properly before they hit the pan. Moisture is the enemy of crispiness, so don't skip that step. The pico de gallo sitting for a few minutes while you cook the filling is also doing a lot of work, it mellows the raw onion and lets everything get friendly together, so it tastes way more balanced by the time it hits the taco.