Chickpea Cucumber Tomato Feta Salad is a tasty and vegetarian dish that combines chickpeas, colorful veggies, and creamy feta cheese. It features crisp vegetables like cherry tomatoes, cucumber, and red onions along with briny feta cheese.
The salty feta cheese and olives serve as the perfect complement to the chickpeas and veggies, creating a delicious vegetarian salad.
This cold summer salad is elevated with high-quality, fruity extra-virgin olive oil, enhancing its flavors.
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Why You'll Love This Salad
A simple vinaigrette made with high-quality fruity extra-virgin olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and pepper binds the Mediterranean flavors in this salad. It's perfect for an easy lunch, quick side dish, or light dinner—ideal for any occasion.
Salads like this can be a real lifesaver when you need to pull a side dish together for impromptu gatherings. Build the salad with the fresh ingredients you have on hand, such as crisp cucumbers.
What You Need For Chickpea Salad
- Chickpeas, also known as garbanzo beans, are found in cans with canned beans at the grocery store. You need one 15-oz can of chickpeas. While they can be eaten straight from the can, it's advisable to place the chickpeas in a colander and rinse them under cold water to remove excess starch. This step helps enhance the texture and look of your final dish. You can discard any loose skin that falls off.
- Feta cheese is traditionally made from sheep's or goat's milk. Imported Greek feta cheeses often come from pasture-raised animals, making some of these imported varieties preferable to their American counterparts in terms of quality and flavor. If you have trouble with dairy or are on a vegan diet, you can leave the cheese out entirely and still have a great salad.
- Olives: You need one small can of sliced olives. Look for olives packed in just water and salt. You can also use Kalamata olives packed in oil.
- Cucumbers should always be crisp and fresh. If you have cukes with seeds, slice the cucumber in half lengthwise and run a small spoon down the center lifting out the seeds, discard. I used Persian cucumbers for this salad. Small Kirby cukes would work great too!
- Cherry or grape tomatoes
- Fresh basil or curly-leaf parsley
Substitutions and Add-ins
For the can of chickpeas, consider substituting black beans or creamy cannellini beans.
If you don't have feta cheese, fresh goat cheese makes a great alternative. Additionally, you can enhance your chickpea salad by adding a couple of hard-boiled eggs, lemon zest, bell peppers, fresh dill, and fresh mint leaves.
Ingredients For The Dressing
This is a lemony salad dressing that you can just whisk together in a small bowl. You can also pour all the ingredients into a screw-top jar and shake it up before dressing the salad.
For the dressing, you need:
- High-quality extra-virgin olive oil
- Fresh lemon
- Dijon mustard
- Garlic
- Italian seasoning (a blend of dried herbs including oregano, basil, marjoram, thyme, and parsley found in the spice aisle). You can also use dried oregano.
- Salt
- Pepper
How To Assemble the Chickpea Salad
Whisk together the dressing ingredients and set them aside. Dice the salad ingredients and add them to a mixing bowl. Gently fold the dressing into the salad; I prefer using a rubber spatula to combine the ingredients.
Cover the salad with plastic wrap and chill it for at least one hour, allowing the flavors to blend.
How to Store Chickpea Salad
Store the salad in an airtight glass container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. Freezing is not recommended.
Serving Suggestions
Chickpea Feta Salad is a cold and refreshing dish, served as an easy side salad for chicken dishes or a delightful topping for a bowl of leafy greens. Of course, you can also enjoy it straight from the bowl as a satisfying and quick lunch.
For guests, garnish the dish with trimmed parsley sprigs and fresh basil leaves. Fresh lemon slices would also offer nice color to the dish.
If some of your guests do not eat cheese, consider serving a bowl of feta alongside the salad so they can help themselves. If you choose this option, be sure to provide at least a cup of feta cheese, as they may take more than if it were already incorporated into the salad.
What Goes with Garbanzo Bean Salad?
Chickpea Cucumber Tomato Feta Salad is a cold and refreshing dish, perfect as a side for Pan Seared Chicken Breasts, Blackened Shrimp, Oven Baked Coconut Shrimp, or any of our delicious snapper recipes.
- Broiled Yellowtail Snapper with Blackening Seasoning
- Roasted Yellowtail Snapper with Old Bay
- Air Fryer Snapper with Cauliflower Recipe
- Pan Fried Yellowtail Snapper
- Pan Fried Snapper with Panko Breadcrumbs
Of course, you can also enjoy it straight from the bowl as a satisfying and complete meal.
Takeaway
This Greek chickpea salad recipe makes a colorful and fresh Mediterranean salad with a simple lemon vinaigrette.
Chickpea, cucumber, and feta salad is a refreshing and nutritious dish that combines the earthy flavor of chickpeas with crispy cucumbers and tangy feta cheese. This heart-healthy salad is not only delicious but also packed with protein, fiber, and various vitamins and minerals.
If you are sensitive to cow's milk, you may tolerate feta which is sheep's milk cheese. The salad is also great without any cheese!
Creating this salad is a breeze, making it an ideal choice for summer gatherings, BBQs, cookouts, and boating expeditions. The recipe is easily scalable, allowing you to easily double or triple it.
"📖 Recipe"
Chickpea Cucumber Tomato Feta Salad
Ingredients
FOR THE DRESSING
- ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
- juice of 2 medium lemons
- ½ teaspoon Dijon mustard
- 1 teaspoon minced garlic (1 large clove)
- 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
- ½ teaspoon salt or to taste
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
FOR THE SALAD
- 1 (15 oz) can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
- 2 Persian cucumbers, sliced and quartered
- 1 cup grape or cherry tomatoes, halved
- ⅓ cup diced red onion
- 2 tablespoons finely chopped curly leaf parsley, rinsed to remove sand
- ½ cup sliced black olives (1 small can)
- ⅓ cup crumbled feta cheese
Instructions
- Whisk the dressing ingredients together in a small bowl or screw top jar.
- Dice the salad ingredients and add them to a large mixing bowl. Gently fold the dressing into the salad using a rubber spatula.
- Cover the salad with plastic wrap and chill for at least one hour before serving to allow flavors to blend.
- Season with additional salt and pepper to taste before serving.
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