Summer Chickpea Salad with Pita

As I've been sitting here trying to pick which recipe to blog about today, it occurred to me that I'm starving. So I figured the most appropriate thing to blog about when you're hungry and it's lunchtime, is a new lunch recipe! This one was super quick and easy to make, and was pretty filling too. We opted to eat it with little pitas, so it wasn't a lot of fun trying to smash the chickpeas into those, but if you got some normal sized pita bread, you'd probably have more success than we did. However, you can eat this by itself too, if you'd prefer to skip out on the bread altogether. Will ultimately took this recipe and turned it into a veggie-induced hummus, after three days of eating it for lunch, which helped extend its life in our fridge even more and made for a yummy snack!


Cooking Notes: The original recipe calls for a 19-oz. can of chickpeas, however we stuck with making 16 oz. worth, since we cooked ours in the slow cooker. We also eliminated the yellow squash. Lastly, we substituted Greek yogurt for mayonnaise.

Summer Chickpea Salad with Pita (adapted from Budget Bytes; serves 6-8)
1 16-oz. can chickpeas
1 small zucchini
1 large carrot
2 whole green onions
1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt
1 1/2 tbsp lemon juice
1/8 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp salt
Fresh cracked pepper

Rinse and drain chickpeas in a colander and transfer them to a large bowl. Grate the carrot, slice the green onions, and finely chop the zucchini. Add the veggies to the bowl with the chickpeas and stir to combine.

In a small bowl, mix the Greek yogurt, lemon juice, garlic powder, salt and fresh ground black pepper. Add the mixture to the bowl with the chickpeas/veggies. Stir to coat the salad in the dressing, slightly mashing the chickpeas (but not completely). Refrigerate until ready to eat, then enjoy with pita! You can learn to make your own pita here: Budget Bytes Pita.

Recipe: Budget Bytes: Confetti Chickpea Salad