Favorite Chickpea Salad
This chickpea salad recipe is the best! Everyone loves this healthy chickpea salad featuring bell pepper, celery, parsley and lemon. So good!
Updated by Kathryne Taylor on August 29, 2024
Have you met my all-time favorite chickpea salad recipe? Sure, I have many beloved chickpea salads on the blog already, but this is my tried-and-true favorite from my cookbook, Love Real Food. In the book, I called it the “Outrageous Herbaceous Chickpea Salad,” which is exactly right!
“Here’s a simple chickpea salad that I could eat every single day. It’s bursting with fresh Mediterranean flavors, thanks to chopped bell pepper, parsley, red onion, and celery. Lemon and garlic take it from tasty to transcendent. This salad packs well, so it’s perfect for potlucks and picnics. It’s also a great lunch option, so long as your serving is large enough…”
I love this recipe as much today as I did when I created the recipe several years ago. In fact, I stand behind all of the cookbook recipes, and it makes me so happy to hear that you’re cooking from the book!
I’m truly a healthier eater when I have this salad in the fridge. It’s the perfect hearty side salad or mid-afternoon snack. Pile it onto a bed of greens, or cooked whole grains like farro or quinoa, or even onto your scrambled eggs or cheese nachos. You can’t go wrong with this one.
Watch How to Make Chickpea Salad
The Best Chickpea Salad
Three more reasons to love this recipe:
- This chickpea salad is beyond easy to throw together. Chop up a few ingredients, rinse and drain canned chickpeas, and stir it all together in a bowl!
- This salad packs great for lunch, picnics, road trips and plane rides.
- Bring this allergy-friendly salad along to your next potluck—it’s vegan/dairy free, gluten free, and nut free, for all to enjoy.
More Chickpea Salads to Enjoy
This chickpea salad is my go-to, but trust me, these chickpea salads are completely delicious as well.
- Chickpea Salad with Carrots and Dill
- Favorite Quinoa Salad
- Greek Kale Salad with Creamy Tahini Dressing
- Herbed Quinoa & Chickpea Salad with Lemon-Tahini Dressing
- Jessica’s Marinated Chickpeas
- Lemony Lentil and Chickpea Salad with Radish and Herbs
Please let me know how your salad turns out in the comments! I hope this chickpea salad becomes your favorite, too.
Favorite Chickpea Salad
This chickpea salad recipe is the best! Keep this healthy chickpea salad in the fridge—it’s the perfect side salad, snack and meal component. It’s vegan and gluten free, too! Recipe yields 4 generous side salads or 6 medium.
Ingredients
- 2 cans (15 ounces each) chickpeas, rinsed and drained, or 3 cups cooked chickpeas
- 1 medium red bell pepper, chopped
- 1 ½ cups chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley (about 1 bunch)
- ½ cup chopped red onion (about ½ small)
- ½ cup chopped celery (about 2 ribs)
- 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 3 tablespoons lemon juice (from 1 to 1 ½ lemons), or more if needed
- 2 cloves garlic, pressed or minced
- ½ teaspoon fine salt
- Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Instructions
- In a medium bowl, combine all of the ingredients. Toss until combined. Taste and add additional lemon juice, salt, or pepper if necessary.
- Serve immediately, or chill until you’re ready to serve. Leftovers keep well, covered in the refrigerator, for up to 4 days.
Notes
This recipe comes straight from my cookbook, Love Real Food.
Serving suggestions: Enjoy this salad as-is or serve it over greens or literally anything that could use some substance and vegetables (nachos or pasta, even). It’s nice with crumbled feta cheese as well.
Nutrition
The information shown is an estimate provided by an online nutrition calculator. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice. See our full nutrition disclosure here.
This is my favorite chickpea salad, so versatile and it always is a hit!
I have changed it up,added olives, tomatoes, cheese, whatever I have on hand.
Thank you!
You’re welcome, Lynn!
way too many ads on your site made me not stay long enough to actually look at the recipe
YES INDEED – It’s maddening & so annoying! I was born with excellent peripheral vision – unfortunately it enhances the trash garbage drug ad’s that bombard this site.
Sarah and Josh. Ads are everywhere, so what’s your problem?
I find it laughable that you are so entited you are not able to tolerate some ads. You can access this site and recipes for free, Maybe stop whining about ads, maybe you are just very distractible if you can’t focus on the main event. I also, have good peripheral vision, I can enjoy the recipes and can appreciate the content without requiring special accomadations and being ‘annoyed.
This is an excellent salad – guests have expressed many compliments for this salad. I commonly use celery, carrots and onions, as peppers in our area of the world can be expensive.
I’d love if you could incorporate nutrition facts per serving. I’m trying to track my food and it would be really helpful!
Love this my Hubby/Partner has been diagnosed as pre-diabetic so was looking at alternatives
I found it to be very dry, needs extra oil, lemon juice or maybe a little Italian dressing
I made this last night as a side to our dinner. It truly is the BEST chickpea salad I ever made. The flavours are dead on and I didn’t need to change a thing. Thank you!!!
You’re welcome, Tammy!
Hi Kate:
Thanks for the vegee recipes.
It is easy to “cook” dry chickpeas (garabanzos) in a covered saucepan.
I put a cupful
of garabanzos in the saucepan and add 1 1/2 cups of water. Bring that to a boil.
Cover the saucepan and let it sit for about a half
hour. I store the cooked garabanzos in a bag in the freezer.
BTW you might like to try low sodium vegetable broth powder. I use it in soups and stews.
I get it at the local “co-op” or order it on line.
Made the tripled version of this; thanks for the time-saving calculations in the recipe! I brought it to a pot luck lunch having made it the night before and it was a big hit! I used about half as much parsley and the recipe was still delicious! One thing that was appreciated by all is that it was a nice complement to all of the other things at the pot luck luncheon and a fresh, new recipe full of flavors, yet not overpowering. I will definitely be making this again. So easy – the only thing I needed to buy was parsley as the rest I had on hand as pantry staples. Make extra to give away a few containers as it will last a few days.
Hi! I’m going to make this for a team meeting, and I love that I can make it the night before! What other foods were at the luncheon that went well with this? I’d love some ideas for other things to serve. :)
Just love this. So fresh, filling, high protein and low calories. And quick! It’s a regular in my dinner menu rotation.
I LOVE this recipe and am so glad that I found it. Something nearly identical was served at a restaurant I went to on vacation, except that that one had roasted chickpeas. I make it with roasted chickpeas for the added flavor and textural contract.
I love how healthy and affordable this recipe is, and the flavors seem to taste even better as the dish sits overnight. The celery/onion/parsely/garlic scraps can also be saved to make veggie stock, win win!