Chickpea Salad
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This beautiful Chickpea Salad combines all of my favorite fresh vegetables in one delicious bite.
Chickpeas are combined with juicy tomatoes, refreshing cucumbers and creamy avocados all tossed in an easy homemade lemon kissed dressing.
This is the perfect make ahead dish as this salad keeps for days!
How to Make Chickpea Salad
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How can you create a salad that packs a protein punch without adding meat? One of the best ways is to include chickpeas! Chickpea Salad is such a delicious and nutritious way to enjoy fresh summer veggies and is perfect to make ahead and enjoy for lunch!
I love fresh summery salads filled with a huge variety of produce and this recipe contains so many wonderful, fresh ingredients! Refreshing cucumbers, juicy diced tomatoes, crisp bell peppers and smooth creamy avocados are the perfect complement to chickpeas! Not only is the combination of colors and textures beautiful, it is loaded with flavor for a totally irresistible meal ready in just minutes.
When choosing an avocado, it should be ripe enough to be a little bit soft you squeeze it, but not too soft. If the skin looks dry or overly wrinkled, it will likely be too ripe. Cut the avocado lengthwise and twist to separate the halves. The flesh should have a light green, even color (brown spots mean it’s a bit overripe). Once the seed is removed, I cut the flesh into squares right in the skin and then use a spoon to easily scoop them out into a bowl.
As soon as you add the avocado to the bowl, squeeze fresh lemon over it, this not only adds flavor to the salad, it keeps avocado from turning brown. I always love using fresh lemon in my recipes, however you can use bottled lemon juice if that is all you have on hand (you’ll need about 1 tablespoon).
In this fresh salad you’ll really want to use fresh parsley and if you substitute dried parsley I think you might be disappointed. The fresh parsley just adds so much flavor to this recipe, it’s fairly inexpensive and it can last up to two weeks in the fridge if it’s stored properly. Find great tips for storing fresh herbs here!
For the dressing in this recipe, I combine all of the liquid ingredients in a mason jar and give it a shake. You can use as much or as little as you’d like and the leftovers will keep at least 1 week to drizzle over salads or even grilled veggies!
There are many options for olive oil; extra virgin, virgin, pure/light, extra light. Extra virgin is considered the least processed and most flavorful, while extra light is the most processed and has a much lighter flavor (and isn’t lighter in fat). So your personal taste and nutritional desires will dictate which one you choose. I prefer virgin olive oil for many of my recipes because it is not too overpowering.
This recipe is so versatile, you can substitute your favorite vegetables; red pepper for green pepper, white or green onion for red onion. Adding feta cheese makes a nice variation, but since feta is quite salty itself be careful when you add the seasonings. (And for those of you asking, Chickpeas are the same as garbanzo beans and can be used interchangeably in this recipe.
Once all your ingredients are assembled, simply toss everything together and that’s it! This salad will last for about 4 days in the refrigerator (even the avocado holds up well). Great to make ahead of time for your next event, or just to eat for leftovers!
Chick Pea Salad is a complete meal that is low in fat, high in protein and incredibly delicious! A super power salad that is so satisfying, and …fun!
This beautiful Chickpea Salad combines all of my favorite fresh vegetables in one delicious bite. Chickpeas are combined with juicy tomatoes, refreshing cucumbers and creamy avocados all tossed in an easy homemade lemon kissed dressing.
- 1 avocado
- 1/2 fresh lemon
- 1 can chickpeas drained (19 oz)
- 1/4 cup sliced red onion
- 2 cups grape tomatoes sliced
- 2 cups diced cucumber
- 1/2 cup fresh parsley
- 3/4 cup diced green bell pepper
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
- 1/2 teaspoon cumin
- salt & pepper
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Cut avocado into cubes and place in bowl. Squeeze the juice from 1/2 lemon over the avocado and gently stir to combine.
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Add remaining salad ingredients and gently toss to combine.
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Refrigerate at least one hour before serving.
(Nutrition information provided is an estimate and will vary based on cooking methods and brands of ingredients used.)
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Holly
Holly is a wine and cheese lover, recipe creator, shopping enthusiast and self appointed foodie. Her greatest passion is creating in the kitchen and making deliciously comforting recipes for the everyday home cook!
Tried it with some Italian dressing and I’m in love. My new go to lunch.
We love it for lunch too.
I made this salad to take to a BBQ cookout. I tried some b4 taking and it is delicious. Next time I will use cilantro.
Hi! I am wondering if you’ve ever tried Cilantro instead of Parsley in this.. I LOVE me some cilantro.
I haven’t tried it with cilantro (yet!), but many readers have and LOVE it! Let us know if you try it Holly!
This looks delicious, and I hate to be a stickler, but can I just point out that almost everything in this list of ingredients is a fruit, not a vegetable? Avocado is a fruit. Lemon is fruit. Tomatoes and cucumbers are also fruit. Bell peppers, while erroneously referred to as vegetables from a culinary standpoint, are also fruit.
hi holly
could I use avacodo oil rather than olive oil, I’m looking forward to trying this recipe. It looks delicious and easy.
I think that would work perfectly! Enjoy Donna!
Holly – thank you very much for this recipe, fantastic! I sauted the bell pepper in my pressure cooker then added my soaked chickpeas with a bay leaf and pressure cooked them. I followed the recipe using cherry tomatoes and cucumbers from my garden. So good!
So glad you loved the salad Greg!
If I was to make this with dried chickpeas, how many grams would I need ? I love the look of this recipe and am going to be making it for my lunches at work.
Taylor, you’ll want to check your package of chickpeas and prepare enough to end up with between 2 and 2 1/2 cups cooked chickpeas for this recipe. It does make a great lunch!
Hi Taylor, I use dry chickpeas exclusively, cook 1 cup of dry chickpeas with your preferred method (I use a stove top pressure cooker), that will result in easily 2 to 2 1/2 cups cooked. Drain them and allow to cool, use as directed in the recipe. Happy cooking and great to see another person using dried beans :)
Thanks for the tip Lee!
This salad is really good! Most of the ingredients were either already in my kitchen, or already on my grocery list. At the advice of other reviewers, I swapped the parsley out for cilantro. That’s the only change I made. It keeps in the fridge really well too. I put in a pita with romaine lettuce and feta…WOW!
I’m so glad you enjoyed it April!
What is the serving size? The nutrition facts are useless without a server a size.
Also I feel like 220 calories for a bunch of vegetables is quite high.
This salad makes 6 servings. While this does have a lot of vegetables, the chickpeas, avocado and olive oil all have higher calories than the other vegetables included in this recipe.
Is the serving size 1 cup?
It can vary slightly depending on the size of your veggies but yes, it’s about 1 cup
What vegetables can I substitute for cucumbers? I can’t eat them. I love chickpeas and the salad sounds delicious except for the cukes.
You can leave them out or perhaps try zucchini? Enjoy!!
Made this this afternoon to go with grilled ribs tonight. DEEEEELISH! Added some crumbled feta cheese as well because I LOVE feta. Would be so easy to switch to a Latin flavored salad: sub black beans for the chick peas, lime juice for the lemon and cilantro for the parsley then may had some crumbled queso fresco. So glad I came across this on Facebook today <3
Yay, so glad you loved it! Love your suggestions too!
Wow! This salad is very flavorful!!! So delicious and healthy. I added cilantro, garlic, corn and feta cheese to ours, just because we had it handy. This recipe is very forgiving. Thank you Holly for sharing your versatile salad as I will be making it regularly this summer.
I’m so glad you loved it Sue! Great additions!!
I love your recipies, I will weigh 600 pounds by the time I try all of them. And I really don’t like pepole who change other people’s recipies, it just doesn’t seem right, but would I be forgiven if I leave out the avacado? I just never took a liking to it. I love chickpeas and I think with all the other ingredients it would still taste ok.
Yes, definitely! :) Enjoy!
I do not like avocado but I use lime juice and sea salt with it and love it ! Try making guacamole and you will be amazed ho w lovely it tastes
Sounds great!
This salad was absolutely fantastic! Made it with cilantro.
Love cilantro! Glad you loved it Crystal!
I just made this yesterday! It was really good and will be a regular on my menu!!
5 stars ⭐️ ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I’m so glad you loved it Kristy!
I made this but I added feta cheese and I use seven sea’s dressing mix instead of oil and red wine viniger.
Sounds delicious! So glad you loved it Deborah!
Made a pound of chickpeas in the slow cooker and I was looking for a recipe that used chickpeas. This recipe is awesome. Tastes great and easy to make.
Glad you loved it!
Really delicious salad with the addition of cilantro. Next time I’ll use white wine vinegar as the red wine vinegar gave it a unappetizing look. Very tasty however!
This recipe was perfect. My huband and I loved it. Very tasty.
So glad you loved it!
This will be my “go to salad” all the time! It is so fresh and tasty! I eliminated the onion ( personal taste) and I added sliced black olives instead of green pepper. Just delicious.
It’s versatile and definitely can be adjusted to suit your tastes. So happy to hear you loved it!
This was amazing! I added singe garlic too! Going to be a regular in my home.
That sounds great Nicole! Glad you love it!
I love your recipes, can’t wait to try the Chic pea salad! Sounds delicious! Thank you!
Thanks Lisa, it’s one of our favorites!
This is a fabulous salad, I’ve shared it with friends and everyone asks for the recipe. So simple but so healthy and filling. Love it!
So glad you enjoyed it Dale! Thank you for sharing the recipe! :)
I am not a fan of cucumber but I think this salad looks fantastic. Do you think zucchini would work well in this recipe instead? Thanks!
Sure it would.
This was a big hit. Will be making this quite often.
That’s great to hear Diana!
This was a great tasting recipe i didnt add avacado because i dont like it, and i only had chilli infused olive oil and that gave it a bit of a kick which we loved and i added allthe colours of the capsicum. Thanks for sharing.
I’m meal prepping this today for my lunches this week. I don’t have the red wine vinegar but I do have white wine vinegar. Would this work? I can’t wait to try this it looks so yummy.
Any vinegar of your choice will work for this recipe Michelle. It may change up the flavor a bit, but you’ll enjoy it!
My husband I decided to start a plant based diet rather than taking medicines to lower blood pressure and cholesterol.
So far its been a week and already I am seeing a reduction in BP numbers. This recipe was excellent! My husband loved it
I tweaked the recipe by using what I had in the house, I sauted my yellow onions first, I also used apple cider vinegar, I didnt want to buy red wine vinegar.
Excellent!
I am so glad you were able to make this recipe work with what you had on hand Mrs. Madison!
This salad is so good. It can be eaten on its own, like a salsa with chips or tossed in a salad. The possibilities are endless. Next time I might add shrimp & a little chili powder. I’ll definitely be bringing this to cook outs this summer.
That sounds delicious Tara! Enjoy!
I love this!! Its so fresh!
Sounds great. I buy cucumber often, any suggestions how to keep it fresh. It seems to get soft and mushy after 3-4 days, even English cucumbers. Thank you
Hello will make it a day before my guests arrive..thanks for sharing. I need to make for 25 persons.. Please advise the quantity of ingredients I will have to use.Also will the avocado not change color if I do it the day before with the dressing on?
This recipe serves 6 so I would suggest making 4x the recipe. I would add the avocado the day of serving.
I love chickpeas and can’t wait to try this salad! Just one question though, have you used cumin powder or whole cumin seeds for the dressing?
I use ground cumin (powder) for this recipe.
Added 1-1/2 c leftover quinoa and it’s delicious!
Fantastic salad! I’ve made this many times…keeps really well in the refrigerator. Also good with sun dried tomatoes (in oil), marinated artichoke hearts, calamata olives and feta cheese. Mediterranean style!
Those sound like yummy additions to this salad! I can’t wait to try it with artichoke hearts! Yum!
Delicious! Even my partner likes it and he is not a big fan of avocado or chickpeas and he doesn’t like tomatoes (boys and vegetables:)
I didn’t have a fresh parsley so I used fresh mint instead and it was very tasty. Thank you for the recipe! It’s a part of my home recipe book now
For such a simple recipe, this was REALLY tasty. I brought this salad to a potluck at work and it went fast. Because I had to make it ahead, I decided to leave out the avocado and although it would have been a nice addition, I really didn’t feel it was missed. Very good!
I’m so glad you enjoyed it!
I made this tonight, and oh-my! It was amazing. I am so excited to have leftovers for lunch. The only change I made was cilantro for the parsley because that’s what I had. Thank you!
Sounds delicious Cheyenne! Glad you loved it!
I made it with Cilantro as well. I used MCT oil instead, and it is a wonderful dish.
Put in my menu to have on a regular basis. Thank’s!
I prefer virgin olive oil for many of my recipes because it is not too overpowering. BEst thanks
I made this today. I’m not rating it because I changed 2 things. I used a Greek seasoning in place of the cumin and I didn’t add an avocado – mostly because I couldn’t find a ripe one and I was also afraid it wouldn’t hold up over a few days.
I liked it very much!
So glad you enjoyed it!
I followed this recipe to a ‘T’ and it was excellent! Thanks for sharing!
So glad you liked it!
Chickpea and avocado is the best combo! Gonna make this for my vegan mom <3
Very light, lots of flavor. easy to make
So good!! My daughter and I made this tonight and we both really liked it a lot. Will definitely be making this again. Thank you for sharing.
So glad you loved it!
This salad was crazy good!
I’m so glad you loved it!
I made this Sunday for a family reunion. It was incredible! But I have some meat-and-potatoes people in my family, and one family member stated that, “Becky sure eats some weird stuff.” Haha! His loss!!
Too funny! We agree, it’s his loss! :P
Just made this tonight and my family loved it! This is definitely one of my favourite salads with awesomeness of goodness.
After reading these salad recipes I want to try the benr …
Just finished making this for a party tomorrow. I tasted prior to chilling it’s fabulous! I omitted green pepper and added feta, used parsley straight from the garden!
Good delicious! I growing chickpeas in my garde.
This salad looks good and delicious, the salad dressing so perfect with all available ingredients!! Thank you!
Enjoy Aria!
My husband loved it.
Regarding your chickpea salad, you say the salad dressing is kissed with lemon yet there is no lemon in the salad dressing ingredients. Is it supposed to come from the 1/2 lemon juice that is squeezed over the avocado? I’ll be making this today, it looks fantastic.
It does come from adding it in with the avocado. Enjoy Kristen!
This salad looks amazing,but I dont care for chickpeas. Can I substitute Blackeyed peas for this salad?
Sure you can!
This salad is so so good! The parsley is off putting in this salad so I think next time I will replace with cilantro, which would also complement the cumin and avocado. Others’ suggestion of adding feta would also be amazing in this. Thanks for the great recipe!
Made this last night. it was fresh and delicious. I will be making this often. I love that you can add whatever you have available. Had feta, great add in. Thanks
I am glad this was a hit! I think adding feta is a great idea!
This looks so good! Perfect for hot summer days.
Can I make this a night before or better made day of?
Absolutely! This recipe keeps for a days!
I made this salad and it was gone, eaten in one sitting by just my boyfriend and I. He was literally tilting the bowl and drinking the juice that was left on the bottom! I would highly recommend substituting the parsley with cilantro as it compliments the cumin. That’s if you like cilantro. Thank you for the wonderful and healthy recipe!
I am so glad you guys liked this recipe! I will have to try it with cilantro sometime!
Do you put the dressing on ahead of time and refrigerate the salad? Or, do you just pour the dressing onto individual portions?
I toss the dressing with the salad before refrigerating.
This was a great salad and easy to make. I had to improvise with orange pepper, vadilla onion but other then that it was great.
I will make it again. We love chick/garbanzo beans, it is healthy filling and even my great grandson liked it. Thanks
I am so glad you were able to make it work with what you had on hand!
What I would LOVE to know is the NUTRITIONAL CONTENT of the chickpea salad!!
I’m sorry I am unable to provide nutritional information. You can enter your ingredients here to calculate your information.
I worked out the nutrition info in order to use it for my Weight Watcher’s tracking – if you use all the dressing and divide the salad into 8 servings (1cup/serving), it is 6 WW Smart Points. If you add feta cheese, that would be additional points.
It looks fabulous, can’t wait to try it !!
I Love all your Recipes, Thank you Soo much !
This looks so good I’m ready to make it right now! I have all the ingredients at hand except for the avocado. Do you think I could use guacamole instead or should I just leave it out?
I would just leave it out. You could add a dollop of guacamole to your serving if you’d like.
I bet if you used the guac and skipped the dressing it would be very tasty. Try it with a little bit of it. You can invent a new recipe. lol
I would definitely recommend cutting the parsley in half. It’s too overbearing. I think this could’ve used a bit more flavor. It was just ok for me.
I used cilantro by mistake and it perked up the flavors wonderfully
What is a serving size?
Serving size would be about 1 cup.
Looks yummy. What if I don’t want to use canned chickpeas. How would I prepare dry chickpeas?
If you choose to use dry, refer to the package for cooking directions.
This looks so good wondering what you could use instead of cumin?
Carroway seeds, chili powder, taco season or curry would be good substitutions for cumin.
This is one of my go to summer recipes that I have been making for decades. Love the addition of an avocado.
This looks crazy refreshing!
This looks delicious!
The picture looks so colorful and looks too delicious. I’ll try it for sure. Thanks for sharing it.
Hope you love it!
YUM!!! This salad looks so fresh and full of great flavors! Thank you for sharing :)
Fresh and delicious! Enjoy! :)
This is my perfect salad! I’d eat it every day!
It’s easy to eat every day!