Chickpea Salad with Roasted Carrots and Feta
In the summer, I would happily eat a salad every night for dinner.
But, it’d better not be just lettuce with croutons. That? Not a dinner salad.
This, though, THIS combination of carrots, chickpeas and feta is a dinner salad. I’m pretty sure Bart ate a full bowl-worth of it before we even got to the table. It was amazing.
Probably, you should make this carrot chickpea salad immediately. (And probably, I should make this again for dinner tonight (I wrote that last sentence and then went to put some chickpeas in the crockpot so we could have it for dinner again and. . . I was completely out of chickpeas. I was both flabbergasted and horrified. Time to go buy forty more bags of dried chickpeas)).
And, look, I know a chickpea and carrot salad sounds pretty boring. I promise that this is not. This is rockstar good (if, you know, rockstars eat salad. I imagine rockstars eating burgers, actually).
carrot chickpea salad with feta
Chickpea Salad with Roasted Carrots and Feta
Ingredients
Dressing:
- 1 teaspoon minced garlic
- 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- 2 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar
- 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
- 1 teaspoon cumin seeds or 3/4 tsp cumin
- 1/2 teaspoon honey
- pinch of cayenne pepper
- 1/4 cup olive oil
Salad:
- 4 cups chickpeas 2 15-oz cans, rinsed and drained
- 1 pound carrots peeled, and sliced into 1/3-inch pieces at an angle
- 1 chicken breast uncooked
- 6 garlic cloves smashed and peeled
- 2 teaspoons cumin seeds
- 2 Tablespoons coconut oil
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt plus more to taste
- 1 cup cashew pieces
- 1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese
- 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
Instructions
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Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
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In a large serving bowl, whisk together all the dressing ingredients except the olive oil. While whisking constantly, pour the oil in as a steady stream until combined. Add chickpeas and toss well. Set aside.
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On a rimmed cookie sheet, toss the carrots, chicken breast, garlic, cumin, and oil until well-combined. Sprinkle evenly with the salt. Roast, until carrots are fork-tender and chicken is cooked through, about 25 minutes, stirring occasionally.
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Remove the garlic from the pan and chop them into very small pieces. Shred the chicken. Add the garlic, chicken, carrots and any pan juices to the chickpeas and stir to combine.
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Cool slightly, then add the remaining ingredients, seasoning with salt to taste.
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Serve warm or at room temperature.
Recipe Notes
(adapted from Perry's Plate)
if you liked this carrot chickpea salad recipe, you might like these other recipes:
- Chicken Quinoa Salad with Feta and Avocado
- Candied Nut Spinach Salad with Strawberry Balsamic Dressing
- Fish Taco Salad with Roasted Vegetables and Chipotle Dressing
How long do you cook your chickpeas in the crock pot? I always use canned, but I want to convert to dried.
Three hours on high. I don't soak them beforehand.
haha! i was about to ask the same question as jenn! i tried chickpeas in a crockpot once and it went horribly. our apartment smelled for hours.
J-Mo doesn't eat cooked carrots…because he is a communist. But, I will definitely make this one day when he's not around! It looks delicious!
xox
Jury is back, this is amazing! Love!
xox
Hmm, I might try this for lunches next week. Satisfying, room-temperature salads are my new thing for work.
I am excited to try this. I LOVED the Thai Quinoa Bowl you posted a while back so now I totally trust your food recommendations! 🙂
I made this last night! I forgot to bring home a bag of carrots (left in the fridge at work, le sigh) so I supplemented the two carrots I had at home with the rather odd mini orange sweet peppers from my organic food club. I also forgot cashews and used drumstick chicken instead of breast because that is what my freezer offered me. Huge hit with my baby, me and my husband. The only comment from my husband was: add noodles! Although he says that about most foods, it now has noodles and is a very wonderful pasta salad. Yum. Also, I am getting a 25 pound bag of black beans and another of navy beans tomorrow…any ideas? haha
I love chickpeas so will have to try this lovely recipe. I have a jar just waiting for this recipe in my dry storage.
Looks delicious – I am excited to try this now that the hubby is all into healthy eating! I don't think he would have touched this with a 10-foot pole before (he doesn't like beans).
Just made our second batch of this DELICIOUS dish and served it for dinner tonight. I LOVE how versatile it is! Still can't add the feta, and I roasted my slivered almonds (that I substitute for the cashews). Last night we had fresh corn on the cob, so tonight I cut the leftovers off the cob and added that to the mix. HERE's the winner: I didn't oven roast it (too dang hot) and I didn't have chicken to add. We went totally veg. and since I had a crockpot of beans cooking for tomorrow, I stuck my peeled carrots on top of the beans for a couple of hours to soften. No-cook, no-meat, no-complaints dinner. I have to one and a half times the recipe for my crew, but EVERY one had a second helping. My college kid home for the fourth asked me to share the recipe with him. THANK YOU! It's a winner.
This was delicious! I'll definitely be making it again.
I read your about page–my family also moved to NC from Texas for grad school in 2013. We're in Wake Forest. So hello, neighbor 🙂