Jerk Chickpea Wraps with Habanero Aioli

I always look forward to fall, big time. I love the cooler temperatures and turning leaves. What I always forget, is that for whatever reason, life gets way busier during the last quarter of the year. It’s not just me right? Maybe with everyone sending their kids back to school and ramping up for the holidays, there’s just a lot of busy energy in the air. In any event, I’m all about quick and easy meals, but with the weather beginning to chill, I want some seriously hearty food too.

Chickpeas are the best when it comes to hearty and easy vegetarian meals. I wish I’d discovered sooner in life that chickpeas, when cooked up in a skillet with some flavorful sauce, can do pretty much anything. They can be just about anything too, depending on just what kind of sauce you choose to go with. For these wraps, I took some inspiration from the flavors in this old jerk burger recipe, and the result was nothing short of delicious.

Jerk, for the uninitiated, is a Caribbean blend that’s heavy on allspice and generally includes some ginger, a few other warming spices, and maybe a bit of molasses. So in a way, it’s perfect for fall, despite its tropical origins, although I did opt to include some very tropical diced up mango in the mix, because, mango.

Traditionally, jerk-seasoned dishes also include a (very hot) Scotch bonnet pepper. I’ve never actually been able to find one of these at the store, so I generally go with a habanero pepper instead. This time around I decided to leave the habanero out of the sauce, and instead include it in some cashew aioli. This worked out great because (1) cashew aioli is the bomb, and (2) you can control the amount of heat that goes into each wrap. So my heat-averse husband ended up going easy on the aioli, while I slathered the heck out of mine. If you want a heat-free version of this recipe, feel free to skip the pepper completely.