Know Your Legumes

Here’s a quick rundown of top legumes and some creative allplants ways to use them, plus answers to questions like, are chickpeas and soy healthy?

What are legumes? 

Legumes are plants that produce fruit grown in pods. Often the entire plant can be eaten, whereas beans are the edible seeds of the legume family. Think of a soy plant, and soybean. 

It’s an ‘all beans are legumes, but not not all legumes are beans’ type of conundrum.

Lentils 

Lentils are a great source of low fat, high fibre protein and are wonderfully versatile. Suited to bolognese, lasagne or curries. 

If you’re looking for a way to use more lentils, then how about trying the recipe for our Bhaji Daal for dinner tonight? It’s comforting, perfectly spiced and ready in under 40 minutes. Or pop it in your next allplants order. 45 minutes in the oven, or just 15 in the microwave.

Chickpeas

Chickpeas are some of our favourite legumes. Again full of protein, they’re also a great source for lots of the minerals we need in our diet, like iron, magnesium and phosphorus. 

Whether you like them roasted in paprika and sea salt tossed through a salad, or in their most divine form, houmous; we can all agree that chickpeas are faithful friends.

Give our Morrocan inspired Carrot and Chickpea Tagine a go next time you’ve got a spare tin you’d like to glow up.

Soy

As a heavily debated dietary and environmental topic, lots of us have strong feelings towards this legume. There are common queries around it’s supposed health negatives; like, is soy bad for me, will soy increase my oestrogen levels, and will soy make me infertile? 

In short, the answer to all of these questions is no. Our allplants nutritionist, Aly, explains all in her article, Is Soy Good For Our Health? 

As a high source of protein and full of healthy fats and zinc, eating soy can be beneficial to us. It’s been proved to lower the risk of cardiovascular diseases and improve bone strength just to name a few.

Why not try our Vegan Pad Thai recipe for soy umami goodness.

Beans

As another high hitter for protein content, beans are a staple to a hearty plant-based diet. From mung to cannellini, and butter to red kidney, they’ve all got different flavours and characteristics, making them ideally suited to pretty much any dish. 

We think our Vegan Bean and Rice Burritos are a bean-filled dream.

Let us know your favourite legumes and recipes in the comments below.