Chickpea Salad With Cumin Vinaigrette

Kumquat the Cat's friend's Note:

No such thing as too many chickpea salads! This was an especially good version I thought, altered a bit with my own and my BF's taste in mind. Extremely easy and no cooking involved, particularly good for lunch at the office or a weekend picnic since it's best at room temperature. If you'd like to make this for a no-cook summer dinner, it's a main meal for two (with a side of green vegetables) or a side dish for four. A Sara Foster recipe from the 4/2007 version of Cottage Living.

• Total Time: 10 mins
• Prep Time: 10 mins
• Cook Time: 0 mins

Ingredients:

Servings: 2

• 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
• 1 lemon, juice of
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 2 teaspoons capers, drained
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 1 (15 1/2 ounce) can chickpeas, drained or 1 cup dried garbanzo beans, cooked, rinsed and drained
• 1 tomato, chopped
• 1 roasted red pepper, drained and chopped (from a jar)
• 2 tablespoons fresh thyme (chopped)
• 2 tablespoons fresh parsley (chopped)
• sea salt, to taste
• pepper, to taste
• 1/4-1/2 cup feta cheese

Directions:

1. Stir together first 7 ingredients in a bowl. Slowly whisk in oil until well blended.
2. Toss chickpeas and next 4 ingredients in large bowl, and drizzle with vinaigrette.
3. Add sea salt and pepper. Add feta cheese and toss gently. Serve immediately at room temperature or chill until ready to serve.

Reviews

[yamakarasu]

Delicious and refreshing! This is even better the next day. Thanks so much!

[Marg (CaymanDesigns)]

Excellent salad! It was similar to a roasted pepper hummus. I was all out of fresh garlic, parsley and thyme when I made it, but the dried worked fine since it sat overnight before I served it. I had requests for the recipe, which is always a good sign. I really liked the capers in it too. I'll be making this one again. Thanks for posting!

[stormylee]

Very flavourful! I only used the juice of 1/2 lemon and didn't miss more; I also omitted the salt as I felt the feta cheese would provide enough saltiness (it did!). Really good: I think you could easily use more chickpeas and tomatoes with the same amount of vinaigrette, and still have an incredibly flavourful salad. Oh nom! Thank you for sharing!