Addictive Chickpea Lentil Salad

Salad number two from my lentil salad list. List of two that is, haha. I started making this after having something similar from a convenience store. I thought, damn I could make this at home and it would be fifty zillion times better. And it was. It's so so ridiculously easy to make especially if you take the trashy route and use canned chickpeas and lentils (hey, sometimes a gal's gotta do what a gals gotta do) and can be a nice side to some meat or seafood, or a main meal on it's own. I made it so much over the summer and always bring it along to BBQ's/parties where it's always welcome!

The chickpeas are my favourite bit they're like little creamy nutty nuggets of goodness. I always try to fit as many on my fork/in to my mouth as I can in one hit. Not going to lie, I often just go for spoonfuls straight from the can...

 

Chickpea Lentil Summer Salad

Serves 4 as a main, 6+ as a side

1/2 generous bunch of parsley (curly or flat), finely chopped
1 400g can of chickpeas
1 400g can of lentils (or alternatively cook and cool 350g from dried)
2 ripe tomatoes de-seeded diced
1 cucumber de-seeded and diced
4 spring onions sliced
1 avocado diced (optional but delicious)

Dressing

2 tbsp white wine vinegar
3 tbsp lemon juice
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tsp tahini (if you don't have this you can substitute mayonnaise)
1 tsp mustard
salt and pepper to taste


Whisk all the dressing ingredients in the bottom of a bowl (serving bowl will do; less to wash). Dice salad veg how you wish (I like, little 1cmish cubes) and toss through with drained chickpeas and lentils. Then, shovel in to your mouth and enjoy!

Hummus

You will never buy hummus again once you make it, even from plain old canned chickpeas it is so much tastier and so much cheaper to make!

You can get a bit fancy with additions like roasted garlic, roasted pumpkin or using white beans instead of chickpeas but the plain old stock standard is always delish.

Hummus

 

1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 tbsp of tahini
1 tsp lemon juice
a lug of olive oil
1 small clove of garlic (optional)
salt and pepper to taste
water if needed

Put everything in to a food processor, blender (or you can use a stick mixer) and puree until smooth, if the mix is too thick and not blending properly add a little water to loosen it. I like to sprinkle a little hot paprika on top and add a drizzle of olive oil.

1 can of chickpeas will make about the same amount you'll get in a med-large tub of dip, and about twice as much as in the photo (I was hungry).