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Introduction: Aquafaba is a by-product of chickpeas (Cicer arietinum L.) that may represent an interesting alternative for providing foam formation, at the same time as being a vegetal ingredient that has pleasant physicochemical and sensory characteristics in culinary vegan recipes. Objective: Standardize the homemade process to obtain aquafaba, with the aim of using it in vegan recipes. Material and Methods: After soaking chickpeas overnight, different proportions of chickpea and water (v/v) were used during the cooking process, in six experiments. The homemade aquafaba samples were analyzed with regard to foam formation and stability, and the results were compared to those of egg white, in order to determine the best proportion of grain:water for developing a vegan chocolate mousse. The samples of standard (egg white) and vegan (aquafaba) mousse went through an acceptability test using a 9-point structured hedonic scale (n= 95 untrained tasters). Results: The foam obtained from egg white presented lower stability (p<0.05), while the aquafaba obtained from a 2:3 grain:water proportion formed foam more quickly, when compared to that obtained from other experiments. This same sample did not present any significant difference in foam formation and stability, compared to the other samples and was selected for the vegan mousse preparation, which did not differ in terms of flavor (p>0.05) and presented better means in the other features evaluated, when compared to standard mousse (p<0.05). Conclusion: The homemade chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) aquafaba obtained from a 2:3 proportion of grain:water (v/v) presented viability for culinary application in vegan mousse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]