Rainbow Salad with Fresh Vegetables, Avocado and Tahini with homemade cooked chickpeas and homemade raw tahini

👨‍🍳 Method

For the homemade cooked chickpeas ✓ Homemade · or skip – back to store-bought

1. 1
   Soak the chickpeas overnight in plenty of cold water.

   Bowl

   💡Soak in plenty of water, well above what's being soaked: legumes and grains swell and drink water, and whatever sticks out stays hard. Drain well before continuing.
2. 2
   Drain, cover with plenty of unsalted water and cook 1.5–2 hours, skimming off the foam and skins from time to time, until the chickpeas are very soft and crush easily between your fingers.

   ColanderStovePot

   💡Fully cooked chickpeas crush between your fingers with no resistance at all. Chickpeas that stay a little firm make a grainy spread, and no amount of tahini will fix it.
3. 3
   Drain, reserving a cup of the cooking liquid.

   Colander

For the Tahini sauce

1. 4
   Grind the sesame seeds in a powerful blender about 3 minutes, until smooth paste forms.

   Blender

   💡At first the sesame looks like dry crumbs: keep grinding, scraping down the sides, and after a few minutes it releases its oil and turns liquid.

   💡In a food processor, grind in short pulses and check between pulses: it's easy to go from coarse to paste. (Sesame for tahini, on the other hand, is ground continuously.)
2. 5
   Taste and adjust the seasoning.
3. 6
   Mix the tahini, lemon juice and garlic and season with salt.
4. 7
   Gradually add cold water while stirring, until the sauce is smooth, pale and pourable.

   💡When you add the first water, the tahini thickens and looks like dough: that's fine. Keep adding water and stirring, and it loosens into a smooth sauce.

To assemble

1. 8
   Peel the beets and cut into cubes.

   KnifeCutting board
2. 9
   Halve the tomatoes.

   KnifeCutting board
3. 10
   Peel the carrot and slice.

   PeelerKnifeCutting board
4. 11
   Slice the avocado.

   KnifeCutting board
5. 12
   Cut the yellow pepper into strips.

   KnifeCutting board
6. 13
   Arrange the leaves on a serving plate.
7. 14
   Arrange the carrot, tomatoes, avocado, yellow pepper, hummus and beets on top, in separate sections by color.
8. 15
   Pour the tahini sauce on top, garnish with the cilantro and serve.