Vegan avocado chickpea salad is flavourful, full of protein and healthy fats, and is perfect for stuffing into lettuce leaves/sandwiches for quick lunches
Part of my morning and evening routine is writing in this gratitude-focused journal. One of the evening prompts is to note how you could have made your day better, which I love because there’s always room for improvement. I find myself writing this one at least once a week: “Sit down for actual meals rather than snacking all day.” This is a bad habit that I’ve had a really hard time breaking since I started 100% working from home and gaining all of my income from my blog and Instagram.
I usually do the breakfast thing because it’s easy. Either some muesli that I’ve mixed up the night before or a quick smoothie. No problem! Lunch is a whole other thing though. I find my most productive hours for working are between 8am and 1:30-ish pm, so I’ll work straight through and by about 2pm I think about sitting down to eat something. But then I talk myself out of it because it feels too late to cook something AND actually stop to eat it. So then I start snacking and I just don’t stop.
By the time dinner rolls around, I amnravenous and cooking with a noticeable sense of urgency and hangry-ness. I’m on edge! Then Mark thinks that I’m mad at something, the dogs start picking up on my vibe, and then I feed back into those feelings… ALL BECAUSE I DIDN’T EAT LUNCH. It’s so silly and probably not an issue for 99% of functional adults.
So I’m trying to love myself and everyone else in my immediate vicinity by actually eating lunch now. We can do hard things! Sometimes I’ll batch cook a grain salad, fix up a chickpea flour pancake with toppings, smush some stuff on toast, or I’ll make a delicious salad/spread kinda deal like this avocado chickpea one and eat it on a sandwich or in crunchy lettuce wraps. It’s got a lot of protein, fibre, and healthy fat, so it really sustains me through the afternoon. No hangry freakout cooking sessions at dinner anymore!
More Avocado Recipes:
- Creamy Avocado Pesto Pasta with Crispy Kale
- Charred Broccoli & Tofu-Stuffed Avocados with Lemon Curry Sauce
- Avocado Tartare with Roasted Beets, Basil & Dukkah
- Cauliflower and Roasted Chickpea Salad with Avocado
The idea here stems from a traditional egg salad (which I was never really into even in my pre-vegan days, can’t explain it). You’ve got the broken up bits of chickpea all surrounded by a creamy mix of avocado, lemon, and dijon mustard. Then we mix in celery, pickles, capers, and chives for flavour and texture. Layered into a sandwich or on a crisp lettuce leaf, this avocado chickpea salad is creamy, tangy, slightly crunchy, and just so flavourful. Along with the act of eating lunch itself, it’s my latest obsession. Hope you’ll give it a try!
Avocado Chickpea Salad
Ingredients
Avocado Chickpea Salad
- 1 ½ cups (1 15-oz can) cooked chickpeas, drained and rinsed
- 2 medium ripe avocados
- ¼ cup fresh lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
- sea salt and ground black pepper, to taste
- 1 stick celery, finely chopped
- 2 tablespoons finely chopped dill pickle
- 2 tablespoons capers, minced
- ¼ cup chopped chives
For Serving
- Boston/bibb lettuce leaves OR radicchio leaves
- sliced sandwich bread
- sliced cucumber
- sliced radishes
- extra chopped chives
Notes
- If you’re lettuce-wrapping the salad, any sturdy lettuce leaf that you like is great. I love the bitter edge of radicchio leaves, but understand that this isn’t for everyone. Iceberg, romaine, and Boston/bibb are all great.
- The avocado chickpea salad is also delicious dolloped into a grain bowl setup
- There’s a good amount of acidity in this salad to keep the avocado from browning. If you want to have some leftover, I recommend tightly packing it into a storage container and sprinkling the top with a bit of extra lemon juice. Also, an appropriately sized container where the salad goes right up to the lid is ideal. Less air = less chance of browning/oxidizing.
Instructions
- In a medium bowl, slightly mash the chickpeas with a fork. You still want pieces of chickpea, so don’t fully mash to the point of pureeing.
- Cut the avocados in half, remove the pit, and extract the flesh with a spoon. Transfer the avocado to another medium bowl. Add the lemon juice, dijon mustard, salt, and pepper to the bowl and then mash the avocado mixture until mostly smooth. To the bowl, add the mashed chickpeas, celery, pickle, capers, and chives.
- Fold the avocado chickpea salad mixture together with a spatula until just combined. Check the mixture for seasoning and adjust if necessary. Serve the avocado chickpea salad with lettuce wraps or in between fresh bread slices with other accompaniments. Salad keeps in a tightly sealed container (see recipe headnotes) for up to 3 days.
WAY TO MUCH lemon juice. I would start with 1/8 cup next time. Watch added salt it becomes very acidic with the lemon juice.
I added onion, sliced almond and 1/4 tsp poultry seasonings.
Perhaps it will mellow with time?
I bookmarked this recipe many months ago, but I just rediscovered it when searching for recipes to use some avocados that were getting plenty ripe. What a wonderful quick salad! Great combination of flavors and textures. Looking forward to having this at lunch this week. Definitely will make again.
love these easy + healthy ones! i’m long term traveling and while trying to make less food waste + buy things that are easily accessible – i look for recipes like these. (yet most of the bloggers i follow make ones that are way more complicated hahah)
This is yummy. Have made it and served it several times. Plan to have it as an appetizer for Easter with lettuce wraps instead of the deviled eggs. Such a wonderful comfort food!
made these last night and loved them. did a sandwich with lettuce, tomato, salt, and pepper. i was worried i wouldn’t feel satisfied afterwards (which inevitably leads to late night snacking), but they’re the perfect balance of tasting fresh and light while also being hearty and filling. thanks for sharing!
Made this for lunch just now and it is delightful! Super creamy and tangy and flavorful. Thanks for a delicious update of the chickpea salad!!
Yummo my belly is doing a happy dance… I made this as a light supper on fresh seedy sourdough with radish (which I am currently obsessed with). Love and peace to you xo
I do the same thing. I eat breakfast at 10 or 11 and then do not feel like cooking until 3:30 or 4 when my kids come home from school, ravenous and I am ready for dinner at 4. lol.
Thank you for this wonderful idea! I always find myself skipping lunch too, so much so that I actually moved breakfast to a slightly later time just to avoid that hangry feeling in the evening (the things we do for work!). But avo & chickpea… I may have to put work on hold for that!
Have you tried packing yourself lunch (that morning or the night before)? I don’t work from home regularly, but when I do, I love being able to pull something ready-made from the fridge. It’s usually just leftovers (ALWAYS cook extra) but somehow it feels so much easier to just pull a container from the fridge and heat it up than go into production, even if just for a sandwich. And there’s minimal cleanup.
Also, scheduling in your calendar can help – I have been trying to be better about going outside for a short walk at lunch time, and seeing it in my calendar makes it feel much more important than just a plan in my head.
Good luck!
Great dish! Great color and flavor!
Thank you, Laura. I’m trying to come up with new and interesting ideas to pack for lunch and this fits the bill. Printing the recipe and putting it on the list for next week. BTW, thank you for creating 1 page recipes that are so very easy to print from my phone…not a given with all blogs.
This looks amazing! Yep, fellow work-from-home-r here, and I have the SAME problem. I’ve finally just decided to pick one lunch for the whole week, and it’s been such a relief. I just prep the ingredients on Sunday (pot of soup, salad fixings, etc.) and then don’t think about lunch until next weekend. Mental health = much improved with real lunches every day :)
This recipe looks yummy because your photos are fantastic!!! The beautiful and vibrant colors drew me right in. I will be making this soon. Thanks.
What an interesting take on the ‘salad sandwiches!
And I’d say about 99% of functioning adults who work from home also suffer from lunch phobia, not the other way around