Baked Feta with Tomatoes and Chickpeas

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Late to the party: In February 2021, baked pasta with tomatoes and feta became a viral hit on TikTok, so popular that there were sometimes feta supply shortages. Now there’s a version of this ultra-simple but extremely tasty recipe - with chickpeas instead of pasta. The trick is to allow the feta to become slightly creamy in the oven, so that it blends easily with the tomato sauce. This makes baked feta with tomatoes and chickpeas the perfect soul food that is easy to make. In just over half an hour, you’ll have a great meal on the table, fresh from the oven.

Jenni Häyrinen’s original uses pasta and fresh tomatoes, but Smitten Kitchen’s version replaces the pasta with chickpeas, which I think is very successful. We take it a bit easier here and use canned tomatoes instead of fresh. Of course, you can use about the same amount of fresh tomatoes - with cherry or date tomatoes, you don’t even have to cut them - they just burst open slightly in the oven. You can also use canned tomatoes for this recipe when tomatoes are out of season.

The oil is not necessary to prevent sticking (it will work with the sauce anyway), but rather for flavor: when baked, it will bring out the flavor of the spices and tomatoes. Of course, you can add more spices to the sauce if you like. Dried oregano, for example, works very well. The recipe is also easy to adapt in other ways. Want onions in the sauce? Great, add them. Need an alternative to chickpeas? Try pasta, especially orzo. Don’t like garlic? Leave it out.

The best way to serve baked feta with tomatoes and chickpeas is with a baguette or sourdough bread to soak up the sauce.

Recipe #

Baked feta with tomatoes and chickpeas

35 minutes

2 portions

Ingredients #

• 250 g feta cheese
• 40 g olive oil
• 4 cloves garlic
• 600 g canned tomatoes (equivalent to 1.5 cans)
• 1 pinch of chili powder
• 1 pinch of salt
• 1 pinch of pepper
• 250 g tinned chickpeas (equivalent to approx. 100-125 g dried chickpeas)
• about 10 g fresh parsley

Directions #

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C.
2. Place the feta in the center of an ovenproof dish. Drizzle the oil over the feta and the rest of the dish - just a drizzle, it doesn’t have to be a complete layer. Peel the garlic, chop finely, and spread over the dish.
3. Spread the canned tomatoes in the dish and on top of the feta. If there is not enough sauce, rinse the empty can with a little water and dilute the sauce with this water.
4. Season the sauce with salt, pepper, and chili.
5. Bake in the oven at 200°C for 15 minutes.
6. Remove from the oven after 15 minutes, add the drained chickpeas to the tomato sauce, and stir again. Bake for a further 15 minutes.
7. Meanwhile, wash and chop the parsley. At the end of the baking time, garnish with the parsley and serve.

Carbon Footprint #

In total, two portions of baked feta with tomatoes and chickpeas have an estimated carbon footprint of 3452 g.

This ranks it number 52 out of 56 recipes published on the blog so far in terms of estimated carbon footprint.

Looking at the individual ingredients in this recipe, the feta cheese stands out: It accounts for around half of the recipe’s total carbon footprint, even though it only makes up around a fifth of the ingredients by weight. Of course, animal husbandry and the resulting emissions play a role here: on average, it takes about 10 liters of fresh milk to make 1 kg of cheese (source). Feta is an important flavor component, so I wouldn’t leave it out despite its carbon footprint.

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