03.08.23

I’ve been making this lunch at least once a week for months now. I am obsessed with it, I always think I’m going to get sick of it, but as soon as I take a bite, I’ve fallen back in love.

You will need: one package of Brussels sprouts, one 15-ounce can of chickpeas, plain Greek yogurt, salt, pepper, olive oil, onion powder, garlic powder, and dried dill (or fresh, I guess, if you have it, but one of the great benefits of this recipe is that all of the ingredients are either shelf stable or last a really long time in the fridge). Also — sheet pans. I use two small ones because my oven is little but you could use one big one.

Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees. Take one of your sheet pans and cover the bottom in a thin layer of olive oil (I usually just pour it straight on and tip it around until it’s covered — no need to dirty a pastry brush or something for this). Put it in the oven while it pre-heats to heat the oil up a bit.

While the oven pre-heats with the sheet pan inside, cut up your Brussels sprouts. Remove the bottom and cut them in half, removing the outer leaves and discarding. Maybe cut them into quarters if they’re particularly honkin’ Brussels sprouts. They should be bite-size-ish. Use your best judgment. Put the cut Brussels sprouts into a medium bowl. Toss with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Some of them will come apart and leave leaves (ha). Don’t worry about that, that’s fine.

Open and drain the can of chickpeas. Rinse them in a fine mesh sieve or colander. Dry them as best you can, shaking out water and/or with paper towels on a plate or sheet pan. Dump them onto the sheet pan that’s out of the oven (or in a bowl). Toss with olive oil, salt, and pepper.

Take the sheet pan in the oven out. Dump the Brussels onto the pre-heated sheet pan. They should sizzle a bit on contact. Flip them so they mostly have a cut side down, but no need to be obsessive about it. We’re just making lunch here.

Put the Brussels sprouts and chickpeas in the oven to roast. Both will take, like, 40 minutes or so. But check on them halfway through and move things around (either just on the sheet pans themselves, and/or switch the racks they’re on if you’re feelin’ fancy). The outer leaves of the Brussels sprouts will cook faster than the denser middles — sometimes if they look like they’re getting too dark I’ll fish some of the leaves off the sheet pan so they don’t burn, and continue cooking the rest.

Sometime in this 40 minute cooking time, make the sauce — I usually take two or three heaping spoonfuls of the Greek yogurt and put them into a small bowl or mug to make the sauce, but today that’s about how much is left in the yogurt container, so I will make it directly in there (can you tell by this recipe that I don’t have a dishwasher?). To the yogurt, add salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, dill, and olive oil to desired looseness. Taste and adjust seasoning to your liking. Set aside.

When the vegetables are done, take them out of the oven. I usually wait until the chickpeas are a few shades darker and pretty crispy, and I look for a decent amount of brown on my Brussels sprouts. Just look at them and decide whether or not you think they are done. Don’t overthink it. Use your senses. I feel like I’m pretending to be Samin Nosrat as I’m typing this. That’s a little embarrassing but also huge for me — I do love her. Like, so much. I have an illustration from her book tattooed on my body for God’s sake.

Remove the vegetables from the sheet pan(s) and put them on a plate(s) lined with paper towels to drain off any excess oil. This will encourage both the Brussels and the chickpeas to be as crispy as they can be. Put some of each into a bowl with a dollop or two of the reserved yogurt sauce and go to town. Every time I eat this, I think that it’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever tasted, which sounds so dramatic and insane but I do really mean it. Typically, this amount will be enough for two lunches for me, and I just reheat the chickpeas and Brussels on a sheet pan in the oven for a few minutes the next day. There’s no reason why anyone should listen to me on the matter of food and cooking, but in case you want to, try this. It’s so delicious, it doesn’t involve a lot of ingredients that are going to go bad on you when you weren’t looking, and it doesn’t involve an excessive amount of cleanup. Low dish, high reward.

Don’t forget to turn your oven off.