I have to make a confession: I don’t like salads that much. I’ve never liked them and I never will. I frequently eat salads because it’s the right thing to do, but I’m not a big salad lover. Anyway, this chickpea salad is pretty decent. Almost tasty. Fine! It’s very tasty, even though it’s a salad. It has lots of bold flavors and lovely textures and it’s quite addictive, to be honest.

Salad ingredients (for 2 servings):

• crispy chickpeas
• raw zucchini rolls
• 2 scallions
• 10 cherry tomatoes, halved
• 30g of feta cheese
• 2 handfuls of baby spinach
• lemon dressing

Raw zucchini rolls:

Ingredients:

• 1 zucchini
• juice and zest of ½ a lemon
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 chilli, chopped
• 1 garlic clove, minced

Method:

1. Slice the zucchini as thinly as you can. For this step I used a vegetable peeler.
2. For the marinade mix together lemon juice and zest, olive oil, chilli and garlic and pour over the zucchini slices.
3. Mix well and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
4. After 30 minutes, my slices were tender enough and I rolled them from one end to the other.

Crispy chickpea:

Ingredients:

• 1 can of chickpeas (400g)
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• ¼ tsp salt
• 1 Tbsp of your favorite spice blend

Method:

1. Drain and rinse the chickpeas. Pat the chickpeas dry using a paper towel and toss them with salt and olive oil.
2. Spread them on a parchment paper-lined tray and roast them in the preheated oven at 400°/204
3. For the spice blend I used about 7 peppercorns, ¼ tsp brown sugar, ¼ tsp garam masala, ¼ tsp cumin, ¼ tsp paprika, ¼ tsp powdered garlic and ½ Tbsp onion flakes.
4. Sprinkle the spices over the hot chickpeas and stir to coat evenly.

Lemon dressing:

Ingredients:

• 1 Tbsp lemon juice
• ½ Tbsp honey
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• ¼ tsp lemon zest
• ¼ shallot, finely chopped
• salt and pepper to taste

Method: For the dressing just stir together all the ingredients above.

Assembly:

On a large platter place the baby spinach, scallions, zucchini rolls, cherry tomatoes, crispy chickpea and feta cheese and pour the dressing on top. I served this delicious chickpea salad with fresh homemade flatbreads (recipe here).

Source: www.thekitchn.com