Black Bean and Chickpea Salad
This is a salad that isn’t a salad. There is no lettuce of any kind, but really, you could serve this over a bowl of lettuce and make it into a true salad. You could also put this into a wrap or stuff it into a pita and have a complete meal that way as well.
First of all, there is a ton of protein in this salad since it starts with a mix of black beans and chickpeas. Then I threw in a bunch of garden fresh veggies: peppers, cucumber, green onion, tomatoes… and finally, to give it all some really good flavor, I created a dressing to toss it in.
Most dressings become unhealthy or super high in calories when we buy ones that have a lot of oil and added sugar and then drown our salad in them. This dressing uses zero oil and the only sugar is from the mangos. You can use frozen mango if you don’t have fresh since you are pureeing it anyway, but you should thaw it out a bit first so that the dressing isn’t more of a smoothie than a dressing. Also, you might want to add a pinch of salt to enhance the flavors, or some crushed red pepper if you like it a bit on the spicy side.
Speaking of spicy, if you really want to up the heat, you can swap out some of the peppers for spicy ones or just add spicy peppers into the mix as it is. Don’t be afraid to go with whatever peppers you have (green work here too), or to swap out the lime for a lemon. Red onion will also work instead of green, but unless you are really into onions, I wouldn’t advise using a white onion since they tend to be stronger than green and red ones.
If you don’t have roasted garlic (just cut off the top of a head, drizzle with a tiny bit of oil, put it in a covered, ovenproof dish or wrap it in foil and roast at 400 till tender but not mushy, about 20-30 minutes), you can use fresh garlic, but I would only use 1 clove since roasting the garlic definitely makes it a bit less intense and sweeter than raw.
This is a great do-ahead complete meal, and travels well for a lunch or picnic. You can top it with a few slices of avocado as well for a little extra something.
Ingredients:
- 1 can black beans (drained, rinsed and dried)
- 1 can chickpeas (drained, rinsed and dried)
- 3/4 cups diced yellow pepper
- 3/4 cup diced orange pepper
- 1/3 cup sliced green onion
- 1/2 cup diced cucumber
- 1 cup sliced or diced tomatoes (I sliced about 20 grape tomatoes; if you are using
- juice of 1 lime
- 1 cup fresh or frozen mango chunks (defrost if frozen)
- 3-4 cloves of roasted garlic
- 1/8-1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper (optional)
Directions:
- Combine the beans through the tomatoes in a large bowl and mix well.
- Puree the mango, lime, garlic and crushed red pepper (if using) in a blender.
- Pour the puree over the bean mixture, mix and refrigerate till ready to use
*This recipe tastes best if allowed to sit in the fridge for a few hours for all the flavors to combine
Enjoy!
