What would you like to have: sandwich, cutlets or both???…

Need a break from the usual chicken or turkey or beef sandwich? Try this protein rich and healthy vegetarian sandwich. It’s good to be a vegetarian at least once in a while.

Yesterday, after a heavy Easter lunch, one thing I was damn sure about was skipping the dinner. To burn all the calories, in the evening my husband and I went for power walking and running over the Pedestrian bridge. It was such a beautiful evening and we ran and walked for almost 2 hours. We felt really healthy and revitalized. As I had burned some calories, I felt I should have a simple salad for dinner. But, when I entered into my kitchen, I got attracted to the chickpea cans in my pantry. I couldn’t resist the chick peas, and ended up making a cutlet out of chickpeas and spinach. I just blindly added few ingredients and was pretty impressed by the outcome. I made a sandwich with this cutlet, also ate couple of the cutlets just as it was.

I had some leftover mashed potatoes from Saturday’s BBQ party, hence I smeared the sandwich bread with the leftover mashed potatoes. Placed the Chickpea and Spinach Cutlet between the breads and the next thing I did was open my mouth wide and took a huge bite of the sandwich.

Chickpea-Spinach Sandwich and Cutlets

Ingredients:

  • Chickpeas, canned- 1 can
  • Scallions, chopped- 1/4 cup
  • Spinach, fresh, rinsed- 1 cup
  • Cumin powder- 1 tsp
  • Chilly powder- 3/4 tsp
  • Bread crumbs- 1/4 cup
  • Ground pepper- 1/4 tsp
  • Salt- to taste
  • Yogurt, fat-free, thick- 2 tbsp

Preparation:

  • Rinse the canned chickpeas under running water.

  • Place the chickpeas, scallions, cumin powder, chilly powder, ground pepper and salt in a blender or food processor and coarsely ground it.

  • Transfer the ground mixture into a bowl.

  • Also, coarsely ground fresh spinach leaves separately.

  • Combine the ground chickpeas with the coarsely ground spinach.

  • Add the bread crumbs and yogurt to the mixture and combine well.
  • Taste it and adjust the spice and salt according to your needs.
  • Make medium sized patties out of the ground mixture.

  • Heat a non-stick pan over medium heat, spray the pan with olive oil cooking spray.

  • Place the patties on the pan and cook both sides until it’s browned.

  • If the patties are too moist, add more of the bread crumbs to make it less moist.

Building the sandwich:

  • Toast the sandwich breads. I used Deli swirl rye and pump breads.

  • Smear the breads with mayonnaise. I smeared with mashed potatoes.

  • Place the chickpea and spinach cutlet between the breads, also place few spinach leaves on the bread and close the breads.

  • Next, open up your mouth and have a huge bite of this healthy sandwich.

Tips:

  • Don’t make the chickpea-spinach mixture too moist, add more of the bread crumbs if it’s moist.
  • You could substitute an egg for yogurt.
  • Enjoy the cutlets with tomato ketchup.