Chickpea Omelette (Vegan, Gluten-Free)

This Chickpea Omelette is an egg-free vegan chickpea flour omelette recipe perfect for a protein vegan breakfast. The texture is soft and chewy with a lovely egg flavor from the black salt and yellow color from chickpea flour and turmeric. It’s an easy and healthy 10-minute vegan savory breakfast to start the day!

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I love making vegan substitutes to classic recipes. While for some recipes, like my Vegan Crepes, all it takes are a few adjustments to the classic recipe, making an omelette with chickpea required a full rethink of the whole thing! Omelets are synonymous with eggs, so I had to find a way of getting the very same texture with another ingredient. This omelette is a great alternative to my Tofu Scramble and I make both almost every week, so you can be sure it’s a no-fail recipe!

Chickpeas have a natural egg taste and the brine from canned chickpeas is used to make aquafaba, an egg white analogue. So naturally, I thought of using whole chickpeas to make a vegan omelette. All it took was finding the right balance of ingredients to get the best texture and including Kala Namak (black salt) to boost the sulfur egg-like flavors of this magnificent breakfast.

Why Using Chickpeas?

This vegan omelette recipe is entirely made of chickpea flour, water, and spices. If you are new to chickpea flour in cooking, let me tell you more about it.

Chickpea flour is also known as garbanzo bean flour. It’s a fine, yellowish gluten-free flour made of ground white chickpea. It’s not the same as besan flour or gram flour made of ground chana dal or split brown chickpeas.

Chickpea and Besan flours have very similar flavors, and some people find a bitter aftertaste to chickpea flour that is easily overcome with flavoring or toppings in the recipe. Both flour varieties have different textures, so don’t swap chickpea flour with besan flour in a recipe. In fact, besan chickpea flour is much finer and often needs less water than chickpea flour in recipes.

Overall, both flour varieties are quality vegan protein sources to bake or cook with.

Why Chickpea Flour Omelets Are Amazing

• Ready in under 15 minutes
• Naturally egg-free, dairy-free, vegan, gluten-free, and nut-free.
• Loaded with 13 grams of protein!
• Great for breakfast or lunch
• Very realistic egg taste without any artificial ingredients
• Can be used for meal prep.

Ingredients and Substitutions

All you need to make this vegan chickpea flour omelette are:

• Chickpea Flour or garbanzo bean flour – Don’t use besan flour, or you may have to adjust the liquid in the recipe. You can’t use wheat flour or any other flour in this recipe. It won’t work! Chickpeas contain base chemicals that resemble egg flavors (source).
• Black Salt – Himalayan black salt known as Kala Namak is an Indian volcanic rock salt that contains traces of elements like sulfates, sulfides, iron, and magnesium, all at the origin of the eggy flavor and smell of black salt. That’s why black salt is trendy in vegan recipes that mimic eggs like this vegan omelette.
• Turmeric – boosts the yellow color of the omelet.
• Nutritional Yeast – a perfectly vegan-friendly ingredient that contributes to the color of the omelette.
• Garlic Powder – For flavor.
• Olive Oil or avocado oil are both healthy oils to cook your omelette.
• Veggies of Choice – Like zucchini, spinach, red bell pepper, mushrooms, broccoli, onions, or red onions.

How To Make Chickpea Omelette

This vegan omelette gets its texture and color from gluten-free chickpea flour. It’s a healthy flour often used on a vegan, gluten-free diet to make tofu scramble, chickpea pancakes, crepes, or wraps.

1. First, add all the ingredients, except the filling, to a medium mixing bowl and whisk until few to no more lumps are visible. Sometimes, chickpea flour forms lumps that are difficult to remove with a whisk. If so, you can blend the liquid in a small food processor or blender.

2. Next, let the vegan omelette batter rest at room temperature while you prepare the omelette fillings. 

3. Stir fry mushroom slices, spinach, and red pepper for 2 minutes in olive oil. Set aside.
4. In the same non-stick pan, add more olive oil and warm it over medium heat.

5. Pour the chickpea batter into the pan and cook the omelet for 3-4 minutes until the sides and center are dry. Spread the cooked omelette filling on half of the omelette, add dairy-free grated vegan cheese too if you like, then fold the omelette to melt.

6. Serve immediately with an avocado toast or half-baked sweet potato on the side for a fulfilling vegan savory breakfast.

Expert Tips for Perfect Omelets

• Whisk the flour mix well because chickpea flour tends to make more lumps than other types of flour.
• Do not skip the Kala Namak, this is essential for the egg taste.
• The chickpea flour mix needs to rest while cooking the veggies. Do that to make sure the flavors are well combined. Believe me, you won’t regret it, even though it’s where the majority of this recipe’s time goes!
• Cook over medium heat to avoid burning the chickpeas.
• You can meal-prep the dry batter ingredients and combine it with water when you’re ready to cook it.

Vegan Omelette Sides

There are so many delicious vegan omelette fillings you can use in this recipe. Let me share with you our favorite:

• Vegan Protein Add-Ons – Add fried mushrooms, roasted asparagus, sweet peas, kale, oven-roasted cauliflower florets, and baby spinach. You can also add plant-based meat alternatives TVP Meatballs, TVP Taco Meat, Vegan “Chicken” alternatives.
• Vegetables – Fried onions, red pepper, steamed potatoes, steamed sweet potatoes, corn kernels, broccoli, sun-dried tomatoes, tomatoes, mushrooms, etc.
• Top Up – Add some sprouted beans, avocado slices, chopped parsley, or cilantro.

Storage Suggestion

You can keep a cooked omelette in an airtight container in the fridge for a few days, ideally with the filling on the side. The filling might lose water and this could alter the texture of the omelette.

It’s also possible to freeze it in a small container.

Reheat the chickpea omelet in the microwave for under a minute or in a frying pan for a couple of minute on hot olive oil.

More Vegan Chickpea Flour Recipes

If you want to try more recipes using chickpea flour or garbanzo flour, have a look at my other recipes below:

Chickpea Pizza Crust

Chickpea Blondie Recipe

Chickpea Flour Pancakes

Vegan Chickpea Curry

Vegan Chickpea Omelette

This Chickpea Omelette is a delicious savory vegan omelette, perfect for a breakfast rich in protein and vitamins.

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Prep Time: 10 minutes mins

Cook Time: 5 minutes mins

Total Time: 15 minutes mins

Course: Breakfast

Cuisine: American

Servings: 1 omelette

Calories: 344.8 kcal

Author: Carine Claudepierre

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Ingredients

US Customary – Metric

Omelette batter

• ▢ ¼ cup Chickpea Flour
• ▢ ¼ teaspoon Turmeric
• ▢ 1 tablespoon Nutritional Yeast
• ▢ ¼ teaspoon Baking Powder
• ▢ ¼ teaspoon Black Salt - this enhance the egg flavor, or replace by salt
• ▢ ⅓ cup Water - at room temperature

To cook the omelette

• ▢ ½ tablespoon Olive Oil - to fry the omelette

Vegetable filling

• ▢ ½ tablespoon Olive Oil - to fry the vegetable
• ▢ 1 large Sliced Mushrooms
• ▢ 1 oz Baby Spinach
• ▢ 1.4 oz Red Bell Pepper - sliced
• ▢ ¼ teaspoon Salt
• ▢ ⅛ teaspoon Garlic Powder

Optional

• ▢ 2 tablespoons Vegan Cheese

Instructions

Omelette batter

• In a small mixing bowl, whisk the chickpea flour, turmeric, nutritional yeast, baking powder, black salt (or salt).
• Whisk in the water until smooth, and no to few lumps appears. Set aside while you cook the vegetables.

Sautéed vegetables

• In a non-stick frying pan, heat oil over medium heat and sautee the mushrooms slices, spinach, and red bell pepper, until fully roasted. It takes about 2 minutes.
• Season the vegetable with salt, pepper, and garlic powder.
• Remove the vegetables from the pan and set them aside on a plate.

Cook the vegan omelette

• In the same non-stick pan, heat the remaining 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil over medium heat, brushing it all over the pan to prevent the omelette from sticking.
• Pour the chickpea omelette batter in the pan, tilting the pan into circular motion to spread it as you will do for crepes.
• Cook for 3-4 minutes, the omelette is cooked when the sides are dry and it's not wet in the center.
• Cover half of the omelette with the sautéed vegetables, add vegan cheese if desired, loosen up the omelette sides with a spatula and fold in half over the filling.
• Serve immediately.

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Nutrition

Serving: 1omelette | Calories: 344.8kcal | Carbohydrates: 29.5g | Protein: 13g | Fat: 20.1g | Saturated Fat: 3.4g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 2.5g | Monounsaturated Fat: 10.7g | Sodium: 1477.7mg | Potassium: 736.6mg | Fiber: 7.5g | Sugar: 5.5g | Vitamin A: 3913.3IU | Vitamin B12: 0.01µg | Vitamin C: 59.4mg | Vitamin D: 0.1µg | Calcium: 119.7mg | Iron: 3.6mg | Magnesium: 81.4mg | Phosphorus: 164.2mg | Zinc: 1.3mg