Chickpea and Nut Salad

Today’s salad is something that you can use as your would tuna or chicken salad. It has a nice texture from the soaked nuts, which also provided healthy fat and vitamin E. Specifically the sunflower seeds were used for their selenium, which is a known cancer fighter. The dulse granules were added for iodine since I don’t use table salt. I had also hoped the dulse would add a little “fishy” flavor that would mimic tuna, but that didn’t come through in the final product. Next time I may try a different type of sea vegetable granule to see if that makes a difference.

I wanted something that I could use in a sandwich or on a bed of greens that would be satisfying for lunch. I think this one is a nice change from my usual "chickpea only" salad.

Chickpea and Nut Salad
Makes 8 – ½ cup servings

Ingredients:

1 cup of dried chickpeas, soaked overnight
¼ cup of almonds, soaked overnight
¼ cup of raw sunflower seeds, soaked overnight
Juice and zest of one lemon
2 teaspoon of dulse granules
6 tablespoons of reduced fat almond milk mayonnaise
½ of a red onion, finely diced
3 celery stalks, finely diced
2 tablespoons of no salt seasoning – Costco Brand
2 teaspoons of kosher salt

Directions:

Cook chickpeas until they are cooked through but a little firm. You don’t want them to turn to disintegrate like in hummus. My chickpeas were cooked in 15 minutes on medium heat.

Rinse the almonds and sunflower seeds and place in the food processor. Pulse to mostly break down the seeds, leaving a little texture to remain in the final product. Add the cooked chickpeas to the food processor and pulse a few times to break up the chickpeas lightly.

Mix all the ingredients together until thoroughly combined. Taste the salad for seasoning and refrigerate until needed.

Nutritional Information:

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 134.94
Calories From Fat (57%) - 76.59

Total Fat - 8.92g
Saturated Fat - 0.71g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 494.98mg
Potassium - 207.24mg
Total Carbohydrates - 11.48g
Fiber - 2.75g
Sugar - 1.11g
Protein - 3.81g

Comments:

Both my husband and liked this salad. Previously I made this salad with chickpeas only (no nuts), but I definitely think the nuts added a nice textural element that was missing. This salad would also be nice with a little finely diced sun dried tomato, or red bell pepper for color.