This Mediterranean Chickpea Salad is guaranteed to be on your meal rotation after the first bite you take! It’s gluten free, easily comes together, and bursting with flavor!
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Finding salads that taste amazing, easy to make, great for meal prep and physically and mentally nourishing are hard to find. Until this Mediterranean Chickpea Salad.
The problem with many salads is that because they contain lettuce, they aren’t a great meal prep option. This salad solves that problem by giving you all the amazing textures and tastes of salads that you love, without the need for leafy greens.
The solution therefore gives you an incredibly delicious salad that’s perfect to let marinade and come together for an ultimate meal prep salad option.
Jump to:
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- Easy – While there are three recipes needed to make the full salad, all the steps are so easy!
- Meal Prep – This salad is good in the fridge for up to 5 days, making it a great meal prep option
- Versatile – You can easily swap out ingredients for things you don’t like or don’t have on hand and still make this a delicious salad.
🥘Recipe Ingredients
Gather your ingredients!
Vegan Feta
The vegan feta contains white miso, olive oil, nutritional yeast, garlic, apple cider vinegar, lemon juice, salt, pepper, garlic powder, Italian seasoning and tofu.
It’s tangy and bold and really delicious.
Substitute: You can try making this with pumfu (pumpkin seed tofu) or chickpea tofu but note that we haven’t tried it ourselves.
Lemon Vinaigrette
The lemon vinaigrette has lemon juice, zest, red wine vinegar, garlic, dijon, salt, pepper, oil, and dried oregano.
Substitute: You can also use a store bought vinaigrette if you’d prefer not to make.
Chickpeas
Our choice of protein for this dish is chickpeas. It adds a nice balance of texture and flavor to the other ingredients.
Substitute: You could do other beans like white or butter beans, or something like lentils as well.
Vegetables (and Fruit!)
We’re choosing to add cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, onions and blueberries.
Substitute: While we personally love this combination, feel free to switch up the ingredients that you love or have on hand.
See my recipe card below for a complete list of the ingredients with measurements.
Recipe FAQs:
There is soy used in the form of tofu for the vegan feta. You could swap this out with pumfu (pumpkin seed tofu) or chickpea tofu. It is important to note that we haven’t personally tried this method.
There is also miso which is a soybean paste. We would substitute that with coconut aminos, soy free soy sauce, tamari, or tahini sauce depending on your allergens. There are no other Top 9 allergens.
Store in a tightly sealed container in the fridge until ready to eat. It is good for 5 days when stored properly.
The salad dressing can be, but we don’t recommend freezing the salad.
Other Salad Dishes to Try:
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🥳 Get the Full Recipe
Easy Loaded Mediterranean Salad
Ingredients
Mediterranean Salad
- 30 oz chickpeas, drained and washed (2 cans)
- 12 oz marinated artichoke hearts, quartered
- 2 cups cherry tomatoes, halved
- 4 Mini cucumbers, sliced
- 1 red pepper, diced
- 1 small red onion, diced
- ¼ cup fresh basil, chopped
- 1 cup blueberries
- 1 tablespoon dried parsley
Lemon Vinaigrette Dressing
- ¼ cup fresh lemon juice
- Zest from 1 lemon
- 2 tbsps red wine vinegar
- 1 large garlic clove grated
- 1 -2 tbsps Dijon mustard
- ¼ teaspoon sea salt more to taste
- ¼ ground black pepper
- ⅓ – ½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
- ½ teaspoon dried oregano optional
Tofu feta
- 2 tablespoons warm water
- 2 tablespoons white miso
- 2 tablespoons light olive oil
- 3 tablespoons nutritional yeast
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- ⅓ cup apple cider vinegar
- Juice from 1 lemon
- 1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 14 oz package firm tofu, cubed
Instructions
For the Vegan Feta
- Start by making the marinade for the vegan feta by adding everything but the tofu into a bowl or container. Whisk together.
- Add the cubed tofu to a dish with a lid. Pour marinade over it, gently toss together, cover and place in fridge overnight or up to 24-48 hours before using.
For the vinaigrette
- Add all ingredients for the salad dressing together in a jar or bowl. Whisk, shake (if you have a lid) or use an immersion blended to fully combine. Set in the fridge until read to use.
For the Salad
- To a large salad bowl, add all the salad ingredients together and toss. Top with your vegan feta and drizzle on desired amount of dressing as desired.
The Nard Dog did it again!
Awesome fresh salad for summer!
Thank you for making my day!
This recipe has now become a staple for me! So quick, simple and tasty!
Happy to hear that!
Hello, I just tried this recipe and loved it! I have to tweak the recipes for both the tofu feta and the dressing, but it was still an awesome meal. It has been a journey to transition from eating meat and finding adequate sources of protein to support my weight training, and this recipe is definitely added to my roster.
I have a question: my lemon vinaigrette was not as creamy as yours; I used a wisk as I don’t have any of the blenders that you mentioned. Is it the blender that made it so creamy?
Thanks again for sharing your knowledge, you make cooking look good!
So the blender definitely helps with some of the emulsification (getting thicker). You could do it with a whisk but you’d have to whisk really fast and it should help. So glad you enjoyed it
This salad is great! I love the vegan feta, so much better than store bought vegan feta. I added a little agave syrup to the dressing because I like a little sweetness in salad dressing but that’s just me. Looking forward to trying more of your recipes.
Love that you made it your own!
This salad was excellent. Also, the recipe is missing the artichoke hearts.
Thank you, glad you enjoyed it.
In a word: OUTSTANDING!
I agree with you that the blueberries are worth it for a little taste surprise. I marinated the tofu for 3 days and the texture and flavor were surprising and delicious — tangy, briny, and overall even textured like feta. It also made a lot, while being super easy. This is definitely going to the top of the rotation — and for potlucks and family gatherings.
So glad that you agree! It’s a surprise for sure.
Wow!😮
The feta is amazing! Tangy and herby. Like a delicious marinated feta.
The addition of blueberries is fantastic. They really help balance all the flavors.
I can see this being a summer favorite salad on rotation, for sure. I can imagine swapping veggies and beans and it still tasting absolutely amazing!
Totally agree with all of this!