Chickpea Cucumber Salad
on Jun 28, 2019, Updated Jul 24, 2024
This post may contain affiliate links.
This easy chickpea cucumber salad is perfect for a light meal or healthy side.
If you’re looking for a light and fresh salad for summer, this chickpea cucumber salad is perfect! It’s full of flavour, can be made in advance and is easy to make with just a few ingredients.
This simple salad takes just 10 minutes to put together. All it needs is a bit of chopping and it’s ready to enjoy!
This salad works for a light meal or yummy side salad for all your summer grilling.
Why You’ll Love this Salad
- Vegan, gluten-free and oil-free.
- Easy to whip up in just a few minutes.
- Perfect for potlucks, BBQs and picnics.
- Pairs well with grilling like burgers and kebabs.
- Try mashing it up and serving in a wrap.
- Easy to customize with different dressings, add-ins and substitutions.
Ingredients & Substitutions
- Bell Peppers. You’ll need 2 large or 3 small bell peppers. You can use any colour but I’d suggest mixing and matching for a more colourful salad!
- Cucumber. You can use one cucumber or 4-5 mini cucumbers.
- Red Onion: Use about 1 small red onion or 1/2 cup finely chopped.
- Chickpeas (Garbanzo Beans): You can use canned chickpeas, drained and rinse, or cook your own dried chickpeas. You’ll need about 2 cups.
- Tahini: Use your favourite tahini or swap for mayonnaise or 1-2 tbsp olive oil for more of a vinaigrette-style dressing.
- Parsley: This salad is best with fresh parsley. Dried parsley won’t give the same flavour. If you’re not a big parsley fan, you can try cilantro or dill.
- Garlic: Fresh garlic is best. I recommend grating it or using a garlic press so it’s almost like a paste.
- Lemon: You’ll need just a squeeze of fresh lemon juice so 1 lemon will be more than enough.
- Smoked Paprika: The recipe calls for smoked paprika, which gives it a bit of smokey flavour. If you don’t have smoked paprika you can use regular paprika.
- Vinegar: You can use white wine vinegar, red wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar.
Other ingredients that work well in this salad are dill, fresh cherry or grape tomato, avocado, kale, spinach, feta cheese, sun dried tomato, broccoli, capers, artichokes and olives.
Variations
This salad is super easy to customize. Here are some yummy additions and swaps you can try:
- Omit the lemon, tahini, vinegar and smoked paprika and use this Italian salad dressing instead.
- Use mayonnaise instead of tahini for a creamier salad.
- Add ingredients like olives, capers and feta for a Mediterranean vibe.
- Add extra veggies like broccoli, tomato or kale.
- Serve with cubed or crumbled feta cheese on top or mixed into the salad.
- Mix in diced avocado or serve with avocado on top.
- Add up to 1 cup cooked quinoa to make a chickpea quinoa salad. Couscous or millet also works.
- Add 1-2 cups of any cooked pasta like orzo, penne or bows or for summer pasta salads check out this Greek pasta salad, Italian pasta salad or pesto pasta salad.
Storing Instructions
- Store the salad in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 4 days.
- Enjoy chilled or let it come to room temperature.
- This recipe is not suitable for freezing.
More Chickpea Salads
Loving this easy chickpea salad? You might like these too:
- Broccoli Chickpea Salad: Deli-style chickpea and broccoli salad.
- Curried Chickpea Salad: Chickpeas in a creamy curry dressing.
- Chickpea Blueberry Salad: A summer salad with chickpeas, greens, walnuts and fresh blueberries.
- Roasted Chickpea Kale Salad: Kale salad with roasted chickpeas for crunch.
- Chickpea Veggie Salad: Veggie-packed salad with kale, zucchini, peppers and more!
For more easy chickpea recipes, try these spiced chickpeas, Mediterranean chickpea skillet or sweet potato chickpea skillet.
Did you try this recipe? I’d love to hear about it! Scroll down to the comment section to leave a star rating and review.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Vegan Chickpea Cucumber Salad
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 2 tbsp red wine vinegar
- 4 tbsp tahini, 60 g
- 3 cloves garlic, grated or pressed
- 1 tsp smoked paprika
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp pepper
- 2 bell peppers of different colours, seeds removed and diced
- 1 19 oz. can chickpeas, drained and well-rinsed (2 cups)
- 1/2 cup diced red onion
- 1 cucumber, finely chopped
- 1/2 cup lightly packed parsley, finely chopped
- 1/2 cup raisins or dried cranberries
Instructions
- Mix the lemon juice, vinegar, tahini, garlic, smoked paprika, salt and pepper together in a large mixing bowl until fully combined.
- Add the rest of the ingredients and mix to combine.
- Serve immediately or chill in the fridge for 1-2 hours before serving to allow flavors to mix.
Notes
Nutrition
UPDATE NOTE: This recipe was originally published on February 15, 2015. It was updated in June 2019 with new photos and text.
This was amazing!! So so good! I went with the dried cranberries! No regrets!!!
Thanks, Cynthia!
It was simple & delicious 😋
So glad you enjoyed it! I love how simple it is too…just a nice, simple, tasty plant-based dish!
Just made the Spicy chick bean burger…the whole family loved them… This chickpea salad is for tomorrow…thanks for sharing
This is now my fancy salad that I take put for dinners, it always impresses my friends.
I love that! Glad everyone always enjoys it.
Love this salad! The smoked paprika flavour with the tahini and lemon is so good! Great to take for lunch. Thank you!
Made this for dinner Deryn! thanks for the yummy inspiration!!
Ah! It’s like unblended hummus!
I didn’t have time for breakfast this morning so this post is making me drool, ha ha! This salad looks delicious, Deryn. I love the variety of color! 🙂