Green Chickpea Salad with Marinated Veggies

This Green Chickpea Salad with Marinated Vegetables is the kind of recipe that makes healthy food taste delicious. It’s plant-based and filled with micronutrients, yet eating it never feels like a chore (TBH, I’ve started to crave it). It’s bright, sharp, herby, crunchy, and did I mention very easy? Well, it’s that, too.

The marinated vegetables and creamy cashew dressing are really what make this special. Crisp cucumber and sweet white onion soak up vinegar, oregano, garlic, and red pepper flakes until they become tangy, pickle-y, and full of flavor. The cashew cream thickens with the chickpeas, kind of in a potato-salad-like way, making them extra thick and creamy.

It’s the perfect balance of cool, crunchy, creamy, and bright. The kind of lunch that makes you feel energized, satiated, but not bogged down.

Pile it onto toasted bread, stuff it into a pita, spoon it over rice, or eat it straight from the bowl standing in the kitchen. It somehow works every single way!

The ingredients you’ll need for this chickpea salad

For the chickpeas

• 2 ounces (1/2 cup) cashews, soaked in 1/2 cup hot water
• 1 tablespoon white miso
• 1 teaspoon mustard
• 1 cup mixed tender herbs
• 1 teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon white wine vinegar
• 2 (15.5 oz) cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed

For the marinated vegetables

• 1 large (12 oz) cucumber
• 1 large (12 oz) sweet white onion
• 1 teaspoon oregano
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1 teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1/4 cup white wine vinegar

For serving

• Bread of choice
• Parmesan, optional, for dusting

Ingredient substitutions

• White miso: To keep that umami flavor, swap for soy sauce or tamari. Because soy sauce is saltier, start with 1 tablespoon and add more as needed.
• White wine vinegar: Can be swapped for sherry vinegar, champagne vinegar or lemon juice
• Chickpeas: You can choose really any variety of white bean here, such as navy beans, cannellini beans, or butter beans. But really, any kind of bean you prefer will work.
• Cucumber: Can be swapped for other crunchy vegetables like celery, peppers etc.
• Sweet white onion: Can be swapped for yellow onion, red onion, shallot, the white part of one large leek, or a fennel bulb (if you like fennel!)
• Red pepper flakes: Swap for 1/4 teaspoon of aleppo pepper or cayenne pepper, or you can omit.

How to make this recipe

This recipe is perfect for a quick and easy meal, and ultimately breaks down into three easy steps: soak and blend the cashews, marinate the veggies, add chickpeas and toss it all together. Here’s how to make it:

1. Soak and blend the cashews

First, begin by soaking 1/2 cup of raw cashews in 1/2 cup of hot water. Set this aside while you make the marinated vegetables.

Add the cashews and the water they were soaking in to a small blender along with 1 tablespoon of miso and 1 teaspoon mustard. Blend for 1 minute, or until it is very smooth.

Add in 1 cup of tender herbs and blend again. Season with up to 1 teaspoon of Diamond Crystal kosher salt and 1 teaspoon of white wine vinegar. Taste and season as needed.

2. Marinate the veggies

Thinly slice the cucumber on an angle, the thinner, the better. Add this to a large bowl. Thinly slice the white onion and add this to the bowl as well.

Season with 1 teaspoon of oregano, 1/4 teaspoon of garlic powder, 1/4 teaspoon of red pepper flakes, 1 teaspoon of Diamond Crystal kosher salt, and 1 teaspoon of granulated sugar. Pour in 1/4 cup of white wine vinegar, mix and set aside to marinate.

3. Bring it all together

To a large bowl, add the 2 cans of drained and rinsed chickpeas and the cashew dressing. Mash the chickpeas in the dressing until it’s about 75% mashed. The dressing will have thickened around the chickpeas.

To serve, you can either make this into a sandwich, eat it on its own, or as a grain bowl!

What are other ways to serve and eat this recipe?

The great thing about a chickpea salad is you can serve it in so many ways. Here are my favorites apart from a sandwich:

With rice – It’s my absolute favorite. There’s something about the cool salad with crisp textures paired with soft white rice that just does it for me. It would also be amazing with brown rice, hot or cold, which you could easily turn into a wrap.

In a pita – Stuff a warm pita with this salad and maybe add some avocado – sounds delicious to me.

As a grain bowl – Cook and cool some grains so that you get their resistant starches (I’m thinking farro, quinoa, couscous, anything!) and pile this in the middle. A perfect lunch or snack!

Storage tips and how to prep ahead of time

This makes four servings so it’s great for meal prep – perfect to eat one day and save the rest for later. I recommend storing the vegetables portion in one container, and the chickpea salad separately.

For either component, don’t worry about them getting mushy, everything holds up really well. It will keep for up to 4 days. You can store it in one large container or portion it out – I like deli containers like these.

While I have frozen this in a pinch, it’s not my favorite storage method. Try to eat it within the week if you can!

Watch the recipe here

The video may not fully represent the recipe. For best results, follow the instructions as written.

Looking for similar recipes?

And that’s it for this Green Chickpea Salad!

If you make it, please tag me on Pinterest or Instagram so I can see! It’s my favorite thing to scroll through stories and see what you all are making.

You can also shop this video if you’re looking for the exact pieces I use – I’ve linked everything on my ShopMy! *some links may contain affiliate commissions

And of course feel free to leave any questions, comments or reviews! This is the best place to reach me, and I’d love to hear from you <3