Plasma processing appears to be the mainstay of food preservation in the present day due to its effectiveness in controlling microorganisms at low temperatures. Legumes are usually soaked before cooking. Six chickpea varieties (Kripa, Virat, Vishal, Vijay, Digvijay, and Rajas) were soaked in distilled water at room temperature, and Peleg model was fitted after plasma treatment. Cold plasma treatment was used at 40, 50 and 60 Watt with exposure times of 10, 15 and 20 min. K1(Peleg rate constant) consistently decreased from 32.3 to 4.3 × 10–3(h % − 1) for all six chickpea cultivars, indicating an increased water absorption rate with increasing plasma power and treatment time. It was lowest in 60 W 20 min plasma treatment inViratcultivar. K2(Peleg capacity constant) ranged from 9.4 to 12 × 10–3(h % − 1) for all six chickpea cultivars. Thus, plasma treatment showed no effect on water uptake capacity (K2), as it did not increase or decrease consistently with increasing plasma power and treatment time. Fitting the Peleg model successfully revealed the correlation between the water absorption of chickpea cultivars. The model fit ranged fromR2≥ 0.9873 to 0.9981 for all six chickpea cultivars.