Chickpea salad sandwiches
Smashed chickpeas with crunchy celery, pickles and a lemony tahini dressing, a plant-based twist on tuna salad that costs next to nothing.
- 15 min total
- 15 min hands-on
- Anyone can make this
- Serves 4
- About $1.50 a serving
- 450 calories
- Good the next day
- Vegan
- Dairy-free
Dolly says: I’d make this on a weeknight. It’s on the table in 15 minutes.
Ingredients
For 4 servings.
- 2 cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed
- 2 stalks celery, finely chopped
- ¼ red onion, finely chopped
- 1 dill pickle, finely chopped
- 3 tbsp tahini
- ½ lemon, juiced
- 2 tsp Dijon mustard
- 8 slices whole wheat bread
- 1 tomato, sliced
- 1 cup green leaf lettuce, about 4 leaves
From your pantry
- ½ tsp salt
- ¼ tsp black pepper
Each serving has about 450 calories, 23 g protein, 65 g carbs and 13 g fat, and costs about $1.50 at typical US grocery prices. Both are estimates from what the recipe uses.
Missing something?
- No red onions? White onions or yellow onions work.
- No lemons? Limes work.
- No tomatoes? Roma tomatoes work.
Steps
Tap an underlined word for a quick explanation.
and the chickpeas, shake them dry in the strainer and them with a clean towel.
Drain. Draining means pouring off liquid, like tipping pasta into a colander or spooning extra fat out of the pan. Pour hot grease into a can or jar, not the sink, where it hardens and clogs the pipes.
How you’ll know: Only a few drips are left, and the food isn’t sitting in a puddle.
Rinse. Rinsing means running cold water over rice or canned beans in a strainer while you swish them around. It washes off loose starch and can liquid, so rice cooks up fluffy and beans taste clean.
How you’ll know: The water running out goes from cloudy to mostly clear; it doesn’t have to be perfect.
Pat dry. Patting dry means pressing paper towels onto food to soak up the moisture on its surface. Wet food steams instead of browning, so this is how you get a good sear and crisp skin.
How you’ll know: The surface feels tacky, not wet, and the last paper towel comes away barely damp.
Dolly’s tip: Wet chickpeas make a watery salad, so get them as dry as you can.Tip them into a bowl and mash with a fork or potato masher until most are broken up but some halves are left.
Dolly’s tip: You want it chunky like tuna salad, not smooth like hummus.the celery, onion and pickle and add them to the bowl.
Finely chop. Finely chopping means cutting food into small pieces, a little bigger than minced, about the size of a lentil. Small pieces spread their flavor through the dish and cook quickly.
How you’ll know: Nothing is bigger than a lentil, and the pile looks like confetti rather than paste.
Add the tahini, lemon juice, mustard, salt, pepper and 2 tablespoons of juice from the pickle jar, and until everything is coated.
Stir. Stirring means moving food around with a spoon or spatula so it cooks evenly and doesn’t stick. Unless the recipe says constantly, every so often is plenty, and it gives food time to brown.
How you’ll know: When you drag the spoon across the bottom, nothing is sticking or scorching.
Taste and add more salt or lemon until it tastes tangy and bright.
Slice the tomato and spread the chickpea salad over 4 of bread. Add tomato and lettuce and close with the other 4 slices.
Slice. Slicing means cutting food into flat pieces of about the same thickness. Even slices cook evenly, so none are raw while others burn.
How you’ll know: Lay a few side by side: they’re close to the same thickness from one end to the other.
Dolly’s tip: The salad keeps 4 days in the fridge. For lunches, pack it on its own and build the sandwich at lunchtime.
Plan this in Dollop, and get the grocery list
Dollop puts this dinner on a night that suits your week, lists only what you still need to buy, and walks you through each step while you cook.
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30-minute dinners ›Vegetarian dinners ›What to make with lettuce and tomatoes ›What to make with chickpeas and tomatoes ›