TL;DR: Chickpea flour, besan, and gram flour are three names for the same kitchen staple in Australia: a fine, pale-yellow flour milled from chickpeas. All three are naturally gluten-free. All three are interchangeable for the recipes most Australian home cooks will make (pakoras, socca, farinata, vegan omelettes, fritters, gluten-free baking). The names track to slightly different bean varieties, but for everyday cooking you can ignore the distinction. Store it in the fridge if you’re not using a kilo in two months.
You walk into the bulk store for chickpea flour. The bin next to it says “besan.” Two aisles down, a Coles packet calls the same thing “gram flour.” Same colour, same smell, three different names, and a tiny voice in your head asks if you’re about to buy the wrong one.
You’re not. But there is a real difference, and it’s the kind of thing your grandmother’s neighbour would have known and your cooking app probably won’t tell you. We mill chickpea flour for our Moonee Ponds counter and it’s one of the five questions we get asked most often across the bin. Here’s the actual answer, the way we’d explain it if you came in on a Saturday morning.
Chickpea flour is a gluten-free flour made by grinding dried chickpeas (Cicer arietinum) into a fine, pale-yellow powder. It’s higher in protein than wheat flour, around 22g per 100g in the version we mill, and it’s used as a flour, a batter base, and a binder across Indian, North African, Mediterranean, and Italian cooking. Common dishes include pakoras, socca, farinata, panelle, papadums, and dhokla.
That’s the textbook answer. The lived-in answer is that chickpea flour is what makes a pakora hold together in the oil, what gives socca its char on the outside and custard on the inside, and what lets a vegan cook scramble “eggs” without an egg. It punches above its weight for what looks like beige powder.
You can buy our organic chickpea flour by the gram at $10.49 per kilo. Milled from Australian-grown chickpeas. Stocked in our flour and sugar collection alongside coconut, almond, buckwheat, and a few other gluten-free options.
In Australian and British shops, yes, “besan” and “gram flour” almost always mean the same thing: a fine flour made from chickpeas, sold for Indian cooking. In India, “besan” is more specific. It refers to flour milled from chana dal, which is split brown chickpeas (also called Bengal gram or kala chana), not the larger white chickpeas (kabuli chana) used for hummus.
In practice this matters less than you’d think. Most besan sold in Australia is milled from kabuli chickpeas, the same bean you’d use whole in a chana masala. It tastes slightly milder than authentic Indian besan, but you’d struggle to taste the difference in a pakora batter once it’s fried.
If you want the real thing for a specific Indian recipe, look for besan labelled as made from chana dal, or grind your own from our organic chana dal. Otherwise, our organic chickpea flour is the same product the supermarket calls “gram flour” and the Indian grocer calls “besan.” It works for everything.
The names track to slightly different bean varieties, but for almost every recipe an Australian home cook will make, the differences are invisible.
Chickpea flour and garbanzo bean flour are milled from whole, dried white chickpeas (kabuli chana). Pale yellow, mildly sweet, mild bean taste. This is what we mill for the Graina bin and what most Australian supermarkets sell. It’s the right flour for pakoras, bhajis, dhokla, socca, farinata, panelle, vegan omelettes, fritters, gluten-free baking, and any recipe you’re likely to cook in a Melbourne kitchen.
Authentic Indian besan is milled from chana dal, the split brown chickpeas you find at Indian grocers. Slightly darker, fattier, earthier. It’s a different bean variety from the same plant family, and most Australian bags labelled “besan” are actually kabuli chickpea flour anyway. If you’re after the chana-dal version specifically, two niche Indian sweets (besan ladoo and Mysore pak) and the Gujarati curry kadhi do read differently with it. For everything else, you’ll never know the difference.
So when you see “chickpea flour,” “besan,” “gram flour,” or “garbanzo flour” on a recipe, treat them as the same ingredient. The flour we mill at Graina covers the entire weeknight repertoire. If you want to nerd out on traditional Indian sweets at some point, you can grind your own from a bag of our organic chana dal in a spice grinder for thirty seconds.
Yes, chickpea flour is naturally gluten-free. Chickpeas are a legume, not a cereal grain, and contain no gluten in any form. That said, cross-contamination matters. If you’re coeliac or highly gluten-sensitive, look for a product labelled “certified gluten-free,” which means the mill is tested and the flour hasn’t shared equipment with wheat.
Our chickpea flour at Graina is single-source, milled from Australian-grown organic chickpeas, and we don’t run wheat flour through the same line. If you’re feeding someone coeliac and want extra reassurance, Healthline has a good rundown of which gluten-free flours behave most like wheat flour in baking. Spoiler: chickpea is one of the better ones for structure, because the protein content does some of the work gluten would normally do.
You can, but not at a 1:1 ratio for everything. Chickpea flour has more protein, more fibre, and absorbs more liquid than wheat flour, so straight swaps in baked goods like cake or pastry will give you something denser and more “bean-y” than you wanted. Use it for flatbreads, fritters, pancakes, batters, and as a thickener. For cakes, mix it 50/50 with rice flour or a gluten-free blend.
A few things we’ve learnt in our own kitchen and from customers who report back:
For savoury batters (pakoras, onion bhajis, fish batter), chickpea flour is the better choice straight up. You don’t need wheat. The batter clings better, fries crisper, and holds the salt and spices.
For socca and farinata, no substitute works. The whole point of socca is the high-protein chickpea-flour batter pouring into a hot pan and turning into something that’s half pancake, half custard. Wheat flour gives you a sad crepe.
For gluten-free baking, treat chickpea flour as a high-protein supporting flour, not the main one. About 20% to 30% of your total flour weight is the sweet spot. More than that and the bean flavour pushes through. Less than that and you’re not getting the binding benefit.
For thickening curries and sauces, toast the chickpea flour in a dry pan first. A minute or two over medium heat, stirring, until it smells nutty rather than raw. This cuts the slight bitterness and helps it dissolve without lumps.
The most useful thing about chickpea flour is that you can keep one bag of it in the cupboard and unlock half a dozen weeknight dinners.
Pakoras are the obvious one. Slice onions thin, salt them, leave for 10 minutes to draw the water out, then mix with chickpea flour, chilli, cumin, turmeric, a splash of water. The salted onion juice does most of the moistening work. Fry small clusters in hot oil at 180°C until the batter sets and the edges go deep gold. Serve with mint chutney or tamarind sauce.
We tested this two ways on the same afternoon: once with Graina’s kabuli chickpea flour, once with chana dal ground in a spice grinder, same onions, same spice mix, same oil temperature. The kabuli batch came out crisper at the five-minute mark and stayed crisp twenty minutes after frying. The chana dal batch softened faster on the plate. For pakoras, the chickpea flour we sell is the better choice, not just a fine substitute.
Socca, the Niçoise street-food pancake, takes five ingredients: chickpea flour, water, olive oil, salt, rosemary. Whisk it the night before so the flour fully hydrates. Pour into a screaming-hot cast-iron pan, finish under the grill. Eat torn into chunks, cracked black pepper on top, glass of something cold in hand.
Vegan omelette. Chickpea flour, water, turmeric (for colour), salt, pinch of kala namak if you have it (it tastes faintly eggy). Whisk to pancake-batter thickness, pour into a non-stick pan. Add sautéed mushrooms or spinach before flipping.
Crispy crust for fish or tofu. Dredge in seasoned chickpea flour instead of cornflour. Holds spices better. Fries crisper than wheat batter and stays crisp longer.
Gravy and curry thickener. Toast a tablespoon in a dry pan, whisk into stock or coconut milk. Adds body and protein without dulling the flavour the way cornflour can.
Cookies and brownies. Sub 25% of the wheat flour in a brownie recipe with chickpea flour. The crumb stays tighter, the inside reads as fudgier rather than cakey, and the protein gives the top its glossy crackle. You can push the substitution to 40% before anyone starts asking why the brownie tastes vaguely of roasted hummus.
If you want to go properly deep on the cuisines that built around this flour, the writers at Goodness have decent recipe coverage on Indian and South Asian staples.
Chickpea flour keeps for about six months in a sealed jar at room temperature, or up to twelve months if you store it in the fridge or freezer. It goes off faster than wheat flour because it has more fat in it (around 5g per 100g, compared to 1g in plain flour), and that fat oxidises and turns rancid over time. If it smells stale, bitter, or “like crayons,” chuck it out. Fresh chickpea flour should smell faintly nutty and slightly sweet.
Kate from Melbourne picked up on this in her review of our chickpea flour: “I love the ingredients I can get from Graina, they smell fresh.” That’s the test you want at home. Open the jar, push your nose in. If it still smells faintly like raw cashews and warm hay, it’s good for another month or two. If it smells flat or off, compost it.
We package into compostable kraft and the bulk-bin stock turns over fast in store, but pantry conditions vary. If you’re not going to use a kilo in two months at home, tip it into a glass jar and stick it in the fridge. The smell test still works either way.
The short version: walk into any Australian shop and look for “chickpea flour,” “besan,” or “gram flour” and you’ll get the same useful, gluten-free, protein-heavy flour. The differences are real but small, and they only matter for one or two specific recipes.
If you want the cheapest version, ours is $10.49 per kilo for the organic Australian-grown chickpea flour, with smaller 500g and 250g amounts if you’re trying it for the first time. If you’re cooking proper Indian sweets and want the authentic chana-dal version, grab a bag of organic chana dal and pulse it in a spice grinder for thirty seconds.
Either way, start with socca this weekend. It’s the recipe that’ll convince you to keep chickpea flour in the cupboard forever.
Is besan the same as gram flour? In Australian and British shops, yes. Both refer to a fine flour made from ground chickpeas. In India, “besan” technically means flour from split brown chickpeas (chana dal), while “gram flour” can be either. For everyday cooking in Australia, the names are interchangeable.
Is chickpea flour gluten-free? Yes. Chickpeas are a legume, not a grain, so chickpea flour contains no gluten naturally. If you’re feeding someone coeliac, choose a flour labelled “certified gluten-free” to confirm there’s no cross-contamination from a shared mill or production line.
Can I substitute chickpea flour for plain flour in baking? Not at a one-to-one ratio for everything. Chickpea flour has more protein and absorbs more liquid than wheat flour. Use it straight in flatbreads, fritters, and batters. For cakes or pastry, mix it with rice flour or a gluten-free blend at 20 to 30 percent of total flour weight.
What’s the difference between besan and chana flour? Authentic Indian besan is milled from chana dal, which is split brown chickpeas with the dark skin removed. Chana flour is the same product, just labelled more literally. Most besan sold in Australian supermarkets is actually milled from white kabuli chickpeas, which is closer to what’s labelled “chickpea flour” or “garbanzo flour.”
How long does chickpea flour last once opened? About six months in a sealed container at room temperature, or up to twelve months in the fridge or freezer. Chickpea flour has more fat than wheat flour, so it goes off faster. If it smells bitter or stale instead of faintly nutty, throw it out.
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