Mediterranean Chopped Chickpea Couscous Salad is the best BBQ side dish for summer parties. Quick and easy to make, refreshing and absolutely delicious!
How do we feel about Mediterranean Chopped Chickpea Couscous Salad? I think we feel pretty good about it.
It’s everything you want from a summer salad: Refreshing, easy and abso-freaking-lutely gorgeous.
Last summer we were in a real food slump. You know you’re in a summer food slump when you’ve been eating the exact same cucumber salad for two point five weeks in a row and just want to make yourself a large pot of comforting soup.
In the summer heat.
Yes, that’s how bad it was. But, alas, it’s not like I can make Harvest Wild Rice Salad in July, so there had to be another way.
My main goal for this summer was to get creative with summer produce and escape the cucumber salad.
I did pretty well, especially with things like this Southwestern Sweet Potato Noodle Salad. Not an endless stream of cucumber salads in sight.
I know what you’re thinking right now. She’s lost it. There ARE cucumbers in this salad.
Yep, right, but there’s also tomatoes and red onions and couscous and CHICKPEAS.
Friends, chickpeas. They’re the best, but don’t eat them before you’re going on a hot date or to a really important work function.
They’re worse than beans and I feel SOMEONE on the internet needs to speak out a warning. So, there you go.
Otherwise, this salad is ambrosia. It is life. Summer in a bowl, if you wish.
Now a word about the grain: Couscous. I don’t know, is couscous still a thing? Was it ever a thing?
I feel like it was definitely a thing in my childhood and teen years. Everybody ate it. Then came Israeli couscous (which I have, honestly, never tried), is that still hip and fashionable?
But anyhow, in line with my record of doing things way before they’re trendy (I’m looking at you, smoothie bowls and energy bites, which I did in 2008 and would be winning the internet now had I known how to start a blaaahg back then, oh wait I did, an embarrassing Tumblr with the most ugly food pics everrrr) – I’ll just continue doing couscous until it’s stylish again.
Also, it tastes freaky delicious next to some crispy oven fried chicken, which sounds like a disaster in the taste department, but it’s such a nice change of pace compared to the usual coleslaw.
Are you with me? See, I knew it. That’s why we’re internet best friends.
Now go cancel date night and make yourself a Mediterranean Chopped Chickpea Couscous Salad.
I promise, it’s worth it. Sort of.
Unless it’s a really good date night, in which case I’d just cancel your important work function tomorrow instead.
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Mediterranean Chopped Chickpea Couscous Salad Recipe
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup Olive Oil
- juice of one Lemon
- 1 teaspoon Mustard
- 1 teaspoon Honey
- Salt and Pepper to taste
- 1 cup Couscous (dry) cooked according to package directions
- 1 Cucumber deseeded and diced
- 16 ounces Cherry Tomatoes diced
- 1 Red Onion finely diced
- 1 15 ounce can Chickpeas drained and rinsed
- 1 handful Fresh Herbs chopped (such as oregano and flat leaf parsley)
- Sunflower Seeds optional – for topping
Instructions
- Whisk together all ingredients for the dressing.
- Toss all salad ingredients with the dressing in a large bowl. Serve with sunflower seeds for sprinkling on some crunch.