I've been cooking more with lentils as well, so many cheap tasty recipes. I've been following this chickpea hack (cooking in microwave for like 5ish) to great success. Microwaving the chickpeas splits them into a crispy texture, then after that it's very flexible to create all kinds of dishes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EU76q3Vf3Q
My favorite is pan frying them in a hot sauce + aromatics for a quick chickpea rice bowl, I even gotten into the habit of using chickpeas as a chicken replacement for many of my Mexican dishes.
If you're use to the typical American diet, please try cooking more lentils! Very tasty, filling dishes, low on costs and high on nutrients.
chicken 100g/27g of protein
chickpeas 100g/19g of protein
That's a good ratio for something that costs less than a dollar a can compared to chicken.
fwiw at the level of protein i need to eat to build muscle mass (im weight training 3x a week), even that 27 vs 19 difference starts to become a problem.
people don't realize how challenging it is to eat 200g of protein a day, every day, for months, without eating like 3000cal lol
that said, i do eat a lot of plant based protein. i love chickpeas and i also fuck w tofu a lot.