Wholefoods & Nutrition

Chickpeas, Haricot Beans & Lentils: The Overlooked Summer Protein

Every summer, meat and fish hog the protein spotlight while a humble bag of pulses sits quietly in the pantry, doing absolutely nothing to earn its reputation as boring. That reputation is undeserved. Chickpeas, haricot beans and lentils are some of the hardest-working ingredients in a warm-weather kitchen, and they deserve a seat at the picnic table, not just a spot in the back of the cupboard.

Meet the pulses

Hover or tap each card to see what makes it worth keeping around.

How to actually get the best out of them

A quick overnight soak works wonders for chickpeas and haricot beans, cutting the cooking time way down, and cooking a big batch at once means future you gets to skip the whole process entirely for a few days. Lentils are even lazier in the best way, no soaking required, ready in under thirty minutes flat, which makes Organic Yellow Split Peas and red split lentils the ultimate answer to "what is for dinner" on the nights you cannot be bothered to think too hard.

Here is the detail most people skip: season with a real salt, not an afterthought shake of table salt. Stirring Natural Fine Sea Salt into beans while they are still warm pulls out flavour that cold seasoning simply cannot match. Small move, big payoff.

Small swap, big win

You do not need a full meal-plan overhaul to eat more pulses. A few easy ones to try this week:

• Swap half the meat in taco filling for mashed haricot beans
• Stir a scoop of lentils into a grain salad
• Roast chickpeas until crisp instead of reaching for a bag of crisps

None of these changes are dramatic, but they add up fast. And on a hot day, a bowl of beans dressed simply in lemon, oil and good salt is usually the meal that actually gets eaten instead of left half-touched on the plate.