Greek Chickpea Salad

On the really hot summer days I don’t want to heat up my kitchen to make a meal so I turn to salads that  are hearty enough to be a meal. This chickpea salad not only keeps the kitchen cool but it will cool you down as well. It was good the first day and even better after marinating all night in the frig. It makes a ton of food so if you like to cook ahead or need a dish for a summer BBQ this one is for you.

It kind of sounds like an odd combination of ingredients with chickpeas, a boiled potato, a green apple, fresh tomatoes, cucumber, onion and Brazil nuts tossed with some white balsamic vinegar and sprinkled with fresh cilantro. Let me tell you it’s a winning combination! Just look at how beautiful and colorful this salad is. The serving size is huge too!

Serve it over a bed of mixed baby greens and you have a perfect hot weather main dish salad. My changes were to use both yellow and red heirloom tomatoes from the farmers market, baby cucumbers and a red onion. I found Brazil nuts in the bulk section at the health food store but you could use walnuts too. We loved this salad!

Greek Chick Pea Salad

Salad:

•  1 1/2 cups cooked garbanzo beans (chick peas) or canned, no salt added or low sodium, drained and rinsed
•  3 plum tomatoes, chopped or 2 large heirloom tomatoes one red and one yellow
•  1 boiled potato, peeled and chopped in chunks (I steamed the potato)
•  1 green apple, peeled, cored and chopped
•  1 cucumber, chopped or 5 mini cucumbers
•  1/2 small red onion, chopped
•  1/4 cup chopped Brazil nuts
•  3 tablespoons white balsamic vinegar or Pecan Vinegar
•  2 tablespoons chopped cilantro or parsley
•  10 ounces mixed salad greens

Mix all salad ingredients, except salad greens. Chill in refrigerator. Serve on bed of mixed salad greens.

Note: This is even better when refrigerated overnight to blend flavors.

Yield: 4  huge main meal servings (if you want to serve this as a side salad it would serve 8)

Nutritional Information

Per Serving; 288 Calories, 15g Protein, 54g Carbohydrates, 3.5g Fat, 23mg Sodium, 12.9g Fiber, WWPP 7

Recipe Adapted from Joel Fuhrman’s Eat For Health

Nutmeg Notes

I’m still working on the blog and moving recipes. I have so many more new recipes to post – I can’t believe how many new things we have tried in the past few months. I might just have to post some of them straight to the recipe pages because there is no way I can blog about each recipe at this point! It’s crazy right?

So it looks like the heat wave is going to sweep across the country and most of us are in for some hot days ahead. I always want to eat lighter and enjoy cool foods on those kinds of days. In addition to salads cold fruit helps to hydrate the body and cool you down. I have a huge amount of red grapes chilling out in the frig. Yesterday I cut up some cantaloupe for another grab and eat chilled fruit. You can bet that I will be making Yonanas to keep cool too. Another batch of Quinoa Bean Salad was made last night – we love that salad. Have you tried it yet?

If any of your fruit starts to get too ripe for eating out of hand just toss it into a freezer bag and freeze it for smoothies or soft serve. I also do the same thing with my greens that look like they are going to wilt before I can use them fresh. They work great in soups or smoothies right from the freezer.

Keep cool!

Tami

Thanks for being here. Do me the pleasure of leaving a comment or asking a question.

What do you eat on these hot summer days?

Have any recipes  or cool foods you want to share?