I’m a food editor – these are the best chickpeas to stock up on now

It’s hard to remember a time when a pot of hummus wasn’t a regular buy for many British shoppers, but we’ve started eating more whole chickpeas, too. As a result, the availability of ready-to-eat canned or jarred chickpeas has soared in recent years. While many chefs say that soaking and cooking dried is the cheapest and best method, most of us don’t have the time or forethought and instead reach for ready-to-eat. As well as own-label canned chickpeas from every supermarket, upmarket brands are proving increasingly popular. A driving force behind this is the entrepreneur Amelia Christie-Miller, founder of fancy jarred bean brand Bold Bean Co. Her jarred beans and pulses, now available in most supermarkets, sell for around £3.25 for 570g (£5.70/kg). Christie-Miller has carved out a new image for chickpeas and other pulses by getting chefs and influencers on board and publishing two recipe books that show how to use them. Shorts At Ocado, Bold Bean sales are up 75 per cent year on year, while all the online retailer’s branded chickpeas have seen huge sales hikes over the past year, according to Freya O’Mara, Trading Manager for Ambient Food and Drinks and Amar Gohil, Senior Buyer. The year-on-year increase from September 2025 to 2026 compared to the previous year shows upmarket ingredient labels Epicure and Belazu are up 271 per cent and 131 per cent respectively, while search terms are up 1139 per cent for M&S chickpeas and 598 per cent for Bold bean chickpeas during the same term. M&S revamped its range this year, repackaging its canned beans and pulses into glass jars. The product inside remains the same, but M&S hoped to encourage people to eat more chickpeas and beans and to raise awareness of the importance of fibre in a healthy diet. Most of us, 96 per cent, eat too little fibre. The recommendation is 30g a day, and higher-fibre diets are linked to a reduced risk of bowel cancer. M&S has committed to increasing sales by 15 per cent by 2028. “Fibre is definitely part of that conversation, but we’re also seeing customers become more interested in the quality, texture and provenance,” says O’Mara. “Jarred beans in particular offer that combination of convenience and a more premium eating experience, which has helped brands such as Bold Bean Co and Brindisa bring [it] a much wider audience.” The price difference between different products is considerable. I try products costing from £1.70 to £9.38 a kilo. But it’s easy to choose how to use them. Pick tinned to add to a soup, stew, curry or pasta sauce and save the giant creamy chickpeas for cold dishes like salads or when they’re intended as the star of the show in a hot dish. M&S Chickpeas in Water 55p/270g drained weight or £2.04/kg M&S caused ripples in the legume world this summer with its canny decision to make its chickpeas and beans look more like the pricier Bold Beans by revamping the packaging from a tin to a glass jar. Do they taste as good? The chickpeas are quite small and hard while the flavour is fairly bland. The texture isn’t bad, though. Chickpeas like these are a great economy buy and are brilliant in curries, baked in tomato sauce or for making hummus if you have the time and inclination to cook your own. 2/5 Bold Bean Queen Chickpeas £3.25/570g or £5.70/kg My joint winner. Huge and soft, these chickpeas have a rounded, nutty flavour and almost melt in the mouth. All Bold Bean products are preserved in the broth they were cooked in, which is thick, juicy and well seasoned. Reduced to an astonishingly great value £2.60 at the moment in Asda, Morrisons and Sainsbury’s. 5/5 Brindisa Navarrico Chickpeas £4.60/540g drained weight or £6.50/kg from Ocado The OG posh chickpea! Huge and tender with wonderful depth of flavour. Buying these means also buying into the brilliant legacy of Spanish cuisine, which is a great place to start looking for your new favourite chickpea recipe. 5/5 M&S Chickpeas in Water, £0.55; Essential Waitrose Chickpeas in Water £0.55; Biona Organic Chickpeas, £2.35 M&S Collection Giant Chickpeas £2.50/490g or £5.10/kg These are the real competitor for Bold Beans rather than the M&S 55p jar – and they’re slightly cheaper, too. The broth has a decent flavour from the chickpeas and they’re a good size, though smaller than the Brindisa and Bold Bean pulses. Overall a delicious chickpea, just not quite as delicious as its two upmarket competitors. 4/5 Biona Organic Chickpeas £2.35/350g or £6.71/kg from Ocado These come in a cute squat jar like the M&S chickpeas, but are smaller and somewhat harder. I used them to make a Melissa Hemsley recipe for chickpea cookies, blended with peanut butter and maple syrup. My three ten-year-old testers didn’t believe they’d been made with chickpeas. 2/5 Merchant Gourmet Jumbo Chickpeas £2.25/240g or £9.38/kg from Tesco Large and juicy-looking, these are packed with a little extra virgin olive oil to keep them moist, which means they don’t need to be drained and can be eaten straight from the packet. Not quite as soft as the jarred chickpeas but a decent runner up. 4/5 Waitrose Duchy Organic Chickpeas in Water, £1.25; Sainsbury’s SO Organic Chickpeas in Water, £1.30; Tesco Chickpeas in Water, £0.41 Napolina Chickpeas in Water £1/240g drained weight or £4.14/kg from Tesco I don’t get much flavour from these but they are a decent size and pleasantly soft. 3/5 Waitrose Duchy Organic Chickpeas in Water £1.25/246g drained weight or £5.08/kg These are so soft for a canned chickpea! Small but juicy, mild nuttiness and not at all dry. Might be my favourite of all the canned products that I try. 3.5/5 Essential Waitrose Chickpeas in Water 55p/240g drained weight or £2.29/kg Very small chickpeas but they taste OK and melt softly in the mouth. 3/5 KTC Chickpeas in Salted Water, £0.70; M&S Collection Giant Chickpeas, £2.50; Napolina Chickpeas in Water, £1 Tesco Chickpeas in Water 41p/240g drained weight or £1.70/kg A fair size though they break in the mouth and are a little dry. Would do well in curries and stews. 2/5 Tesco Organic Chickpeas in Water £1.35/240g drained weight or £5.63/kg These are noticeably more flavoursome than Tesco’s non-organic own brand, though a similar size, and have a much silkier texture. Given the price difference, I’d buy these if I wanted to use them in a salad rather than for cooking with. 2.5/5 KTC Chickpeas in Salted Water 70p/240g drained weight or £2.91/kg One of the OG UK-based chickpea suppliers, KTC was canning our favourite pulses decades before anyone had heard of Ottolenghi. These bring an immediate smile to my face as they’re much tastier than the other canned products I try but then I look at the packaging and realise it’s because they’re in salted water, which the others aren’t. It’s not a huge amount of salt, 0.52g/100g. They’re fairly soft, too. 3/5 Bold Bean Queen Chickpeas, £3.25; Brindisa Navarrico Chickpeas, £4.60; Mr Organic Chickpeas, £2.30 Sainsbury’s SO Organic Chickpeas in Water £1.30/230g drained weight or £5.65/kg Among the smallest of the chickpeas that I try and nice and soft with a silky rather than crumbly finish. 3/5 Mr Organic Chickpeas £2.30/210g drained weight or £6.57/kg Small, firm, nutty and tasty. As with the KTC can, there’s a little added salt in these Mr Organic chickpeas so the taste vastly benefits from that, but otherwise they’re a generally pleasant pea. 3/5