Super Easy Homemade Mediterranean Chickpea Salad

Mediterranean chickpea salad is a wonderful combination of chopped crunchy vegetables with chickpeas or garbanzo beans and all tossed together in a red wine vinaigrette dressing.

This salad is super easy to make and sings of summer days. It's perfect served with grilled foods such as marinated chicken tenders, burgers, steaks, and burgers.

Table of Contents

Healthy Chickpea Salad in Olive Oil Dressing

Chickpeas are also called garbanzo beans and are considered to be one of the first vegetables cultivated by man. They belong to the legume family and they grow on vines, three to a pod.

They are packed full of protein, and are considered a complete protein since they contain all 9 essential amino acids. Some people even think of them as a superfood, since they pack such a nutritious punch. Here's a quick look at their nutrition profile.

Once cup of chickpeas contains:

• 269 calories
• 14.5 grams (g) of protein
• 4.25 g of fat
• 44.9 g of carbohydrates
• 12.5 g of dietary fiber
• 80.4 milligrams (mg) of calcium
• 4.74 mg of iron
• 78.7 mg of magnesium
• 276 mg of potassium
• 11.5 mg of sodium

Source: Cleveland Clinic - What Are Chickpeas and Are They Healthy?

These little superfood peas are promote weight control and cardiovascular health, prevent constipation, and help control blood sugar. They're a great choice for anyone with gluten sensitivity.

This chickpea salad is loaded with typical Mediterranean type vegetables, including crisp cucumbers, cherry tomatoes and peppers.

Everything is tossed in a tangy red wine vinagrette, made from scratch. This is a super easy recipe, with everything coming together super fast. However, for best results, I like to chill the salad for about one hour before serving. Time helps meld all these wonderful flavors together.

Ingredients for Garbanzo Bean salad

Here's a quick list of ingredients. You'll find exact quantities and nutritional information in the recipe card at the end of this post.

Salad Ingredients

• canned chickpeas, rinsed and drained
• cucumber, diced
• yellow bell, pepper deseeded and diced
• red onion, peeled and thinly sliced
• kalamata olives, sliced
• feta cheese crumbles
• cherry tomatoes, washed and halved

For the Vinagrette

• olive oil
• red wine vinegar
• fresh parsley, chopped
• red pepper flakes
• salt or to taste
• pepper or to taste

Ingredients Substitutions and Tips

Canned chickpeas are the easiest choice for this salad. If you wish to use the dried variety here's what you'll need to do.

Soak the dried chickpeas overnight, by coverint them with boiling water and allowing them to stand in a large bowl. Next day, drain the chickpeas and place them in a large pot. Cover with water (use at least three times the volume off the peas). Bring them to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for about 90 minutes to 2 hours. When they're tender drain them and leave them aside to cool.

I use yellow pepper in this recipe since I love the contrast of ingredient colors. Feel free to substitute red pepper or green pepper. However, I find yellow peppers are a little milder in flavor and suit this salad well.

I chose red onion slices for this recipe. You can substitute chopped green onions or scallions, or sliced shallots. They're a little milder than regular onions.

Feta cheese is perfect for a Mediterranean themed salad. You could substitute a crumbled cheese of your choice, but blue cheese may be just too strong for this salad.

Instructions for Homemade Mediterranean Salad

First, let's make the dressing and set it aside.

Simply add all of the vinagrette ingredients into a large bowl and whisk it all together.

Next prepare all of the vegetables.

Drain and rinse the chickpeas.

Wash the pepper. Cut it in half and remove the core and seeds. Dice into small pieces.

Peel and slice the red onion.

Drain the olives and cut them in half.

Rinse and slice the cucumber.

Add all of the prepared vegetables to a large bowl.

Hold off on adding the feta cheese until you're ready to serve the salad.

Toss all the veggies together then pour the vinaigrette dressing over them. Mix everything together.

Cover the salad bowl with plastic wrap or a lid, and let the salad chill in the refrigerator for an hour. Over this time in the fridge all the flavors blend together beautifully.

When you're ready to serve the salad, add the feta cheese crumbles. Mix everything together.

This salad is great as a lunch in and of itself, or as a side salad.

Leftovers can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days. This salad is best when served on the day it is made, but will hold up well enough in the fridge.

This is not a recipe for the freezer. Chickpea salad does not freeze well.

Lots of wonderful healthy ingredients here.

Recipe Card and Video

Here's a short video outlining the steps for making this salad.

Here's the recipe card for your kitchen files.

I hope you enjoy this summer salad. It's so good you can serve it all year long.

Thanks for following my recipes and ramblings.