Quinoa Chickpea Salad

This Quinoa Chickpea Salad is a healthy, easy cold quinoa salad recipe that is perfect for meal prepping for the week in advance. Topped with a creamy lemon tahini dressing.

If you are looking for more quinoa salad recipes to add to your collection, try one of these Cold Quinoa Salads, including this Greek Quinoa Salad or this Sweet Potato Quinoa Salad.

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• Recipe Highlights
• Ingredients & Substitutions
• Step By Step Instructions
• Expert Tips
• Recipe FAQs
• 📖 Recipe

Recipe Highlights

• Lemon Tahini Dressing — This quinoa salad is topped with a creamy, but healthy tahini-based lemon salad dressing. If you don’t like tahini, this Lemon Oregano Dressing works incredibly well as well!
• Healthy — Quinoa is a great source of protein, and combined with roasted chickpeas, cucumbers and bell peppers, this is a healthy quinoa salad that you can eat every day.
• Great For Lunches — Since this quinoa salad tastes delicious served cold, this is a great recipe for meal prepping in advance for a quick, grab and go lunch recipe.

Ingredients & Substitutions

• Quinoa: This recipe uses white quinoa, but you can use whatever type of quinoa you like. If you use a substitute, make sure to follow the package instructions for cooking it.
• Chickpeas: You’ll need one can of chickpeas. If your can is a bit bigger or smaller than what’s listed in the recipe, that is ok.
• Cucumber: Cucumber adds a nice crunch to this salad. You can halve or quarter the cucumber.
• Bell Pepper: Use a red, green, orange or yellow bell pepper.
• Red Onion: Red onion works best in salads, but you can you a slightly lesser amount of white onion if that is all you have.
• Parsley: A large bunch of fresh parsley complements this salad well. Dried parsley doesn’t work as a substitute.
• Tahini — Tahini is the most prominent ingredient in this dressing. There are different quality tahinis, so make sure you are using a high quality one that — most importantly — you enjoy the taste of. 
• Lemon — Use freshly squeezed lemon juice rather than bottled lemon juice for the best flavor.
• Olive Oil — You can use another type of olive oil as a substitute, such as sunflower oil, vegetable oil or avocado oil. You can also replace some of the olive oil (about 1 tbsp) with sesame oil for a dash of sesame flavor. 
• Maple Syrup — A dash of maple syrup adds some sweetness to balance the other flavors. You can use honey as a substitute.
• Dijon — You’ll need a little dash of Dijon mustard. Regular mustard doesn’t work as a substitute. 
• Garlic — Use a small amount of freshly minced garlic to pull the dressing together.

Step By Step Instructions

Step 1: Rinse the quinoa well under cold water. Heat the water and quinoa in a saucepan over medium to high heat. Once boiling, cover the pot and reduce the temperature to low. Simmer for 15 minutes. Turn off the temperature and let the quinoa sit for 10 minutes. Remove the lid and fluff the quinoa with a fork.

Step 2: Rinse and drain the can of chickpeas with water. Drizzle with a dash of olive oil, salt and pepper. Roast them in the oven for 20 minutes at 425F until crispy.

Step 3: Add the olive oil, tahini, lemon juice, maple syrup, Dijon and garlic to a mason jar. Shake vigorously for 10 to 15 seconds until the ingredients are well-emulsified.

Step 4: Add all the salad ingredients to a large bowl and top with the dressing. Mix well before serving.

Expert Tips

• Use another dressing. This lemon tahini dressing is delicious if you like tahini. If you don’t like tahini (or aren’t sure if you do), I recommend making this salad with this Balsamic Date Vinaigrette, this Red Wine Vinaigrette or this Lemon Dijon Dressing.
• Add the dressing sparingly. This is a strong dressing (stronger than other ones), so add a bit at a time and do a taste test to see if you want to add all of it in.
• Add the water at the end. The consistency of this dressing depends largely on the consistency of your tahini. The tahini I used was thicker. If yours isn’t, mix everything else together first and add in the water if needed at the end.

Recipe FAQs

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📖 Recipe