What is Chickpea Salad?
A wholesome and nutritious chickpea salad featuring tender chickpeas tossed with fresh cucumber, juicy tomatoes, red onion, and crisp bell peppers. Dressed in a tangy lemon-garlic vinaigrette and sprinkled with fresh herbs like parsley or cilantro, it delivers a burst of Mediterranean flavors. Perfectly balanced with a touch of olive oil, this hearty salad can be enjoyed as a light meal, a side dish, or a healthy snack.
What does Chickpea Salad Taste Like?
Salty is one of the five main tastes. It has a satisfying and addictive quality with hints of sourness. Salty foods include cheeses, cured meats, chips, and olives. It is used in almost every dish and prepared food. Salt is added to enhance flavor and offer a distinctly salty taste.
Sour is one of the five main tastes. It is tart and bright, sometimes with a mouth-puckering quality. Sour is a naturally occurring flavor found in many foods, including citrus, vinegar, various dairy products, and certain fruits. Sour is used to enhance a dish or drink and is used as both a main and complimentary flavor.
Bitter is one of the five main tastes. It has a sharp and pungent profile. Bitter is a naturally occurring flavor in many foods, including coffee, chocolate, bitter melon, and chicory. Bitter is used sparingly to accentuate the flavors around it and can be mellowed by other tastes in both savory and sweet dishes.
Spicy is a flavor that brings heat and fire to food by creating a burning sensation in the mouth or sinuses. Spicy flavors come from hot peppers, horseradish, and wasabi. Spicy adds a kick and sometimes complexity to a dish and releases endorphins, creating a mildly addictive quality.
Ingredients
Chickpeas are a legume, meaning they are in the bean family. The are shaped like tiny, ridged balls with a gently pointed top. The most common variety is cream colored, though other types are green or black. The texture of the chickpea when boiled is soft and almost grainy. It holds its form easily and tastes nutty and bean-like.
The bell pepper is a vegetable by culinary measures, but botanically it is a fruit. Bell peppers grow in warm to hot climates and are somewhat bell shaped, hence the name. They are large, with wide ridges and smooth, shiny, thin skin. The flesh of the bell pepper is thin, crunchy and a bit juicy. They four main colors of bell peppers are red, green, orange and yellow, some are purple. The flavor is sweet, vegetal and mild. The inside has seeds that should be removed before consuming the flesh of the pepper. These peppers are used in dishes, both raw and cooked.
Carrots are a root vegetable with feathery green tops and long tapered orange colored roots. Some carrot varieties are purple or yellow, but orange is the most common. The carrot can be up to a foot in length. It has a dense, woody texture that is nonetheless very chewable and non-fibrous. Its flavor is sweet and a bit earthy. Carrots are eaten raw, cooked and used in cuisines across the world.
Mayonnaise is a cream colored condiment and thick sauce, or spread. Mayonnaise is made by slowly adding oil to a mixture of raw egg, vinegar and seasonings, until it thickens. This is done by continuously whisking. The flavor is mild, tangy and a bit salty with a comforting quality from the creamy texture. Mayonnaise is a multi-use ingredient for sauces, cold meat salads, sandwiches and more.
Celery is a light green vegetable with tall, thin fibrous stalks and green leaves at their tips. They are extremely juicy and comprised of 90% water. They grow in clusters, sharing a base with about eight or nine ribbed stalks. The texture is crunchy, juicy and has a refreshing flavor that is light, sweet and vegetal. Celery can be eaten raw or cooked into soups and other dishes.
The red onion is a type of onion and a bulb vegetable, meaning its bulb and not its leaves are eaten. Onions come in many varieties, including white, yellow and red. The onion is usually round and has a thin dry skin around its juicy layers. The skin is a purple/red tone as is the flesh. The body of the onion is made of multiple round layers, that get smaller towards the center. The flavor of onions are sharp and sweet when raw, with an astringent taste. When cooked, these flavors mellow and the sweetness emerges. Onion are a very common flavoring and ingredient for many savory dishes.
Lemon juice is made from the flesh of the pulpy yellow lemon fruit. The juice is squeezed from the flesh of the lemon and is a pale yellow color. The flavor is very sour and bright. Lemon juice is used in multiple cuisines around the world to brighten and enhance the flavors of the other ingredients. Lemon juice is used to make lemonade and goes well on fish. It has many uses.
Dijon is a French city from which this popular mustard originated. In the Middle Ages this area of France was known for mustard making. Dijon is now produced in many countries and has a muted yellowy/beige color. It is a smooth textured mustard, without whole mustard seeds and has a robust flavor that is strong, with a good heat and a hint of pungency. Mustard is spread onto sandwiches, used in sauces and has a number of delicious applications.
Garlic powder is made from dehydrated garlic cloves that have been ground into a super fine powder. This powder is a pale yellow/golden color and is used to flavor foods. It works well in a pinch and can be used in many of the same ways that fresh garlic is used. The flavor is milder than raw or cooked garlic and is spicy, pungent and nutty. Garlic granules are another form of dehydrated garlic, but rather than powder it is coarser and has the same function. It is often used on top of fresh pizza, as a light dusting.
Onion powder is made from the bulb vegetable, onion. Onions are round with a thin, papery skin covering their many layers of juicy and crunchy flesh. This flesh, which is white, yellow or red is made by taking dehydrated onion pieces and then grinding them into an extremely fine powder. The powder is a pale golden/tan color. Onion powder has a flavor that is milder than fresh onions, but highly flavorful in a richer and more concentrated way. It tastes both sweet and mellow, with a spicy edge. Onion powder is used as a seasoning for savory dishes.
Salt is a mineral composed mostly of sodium chloride. It is the main flavoring used in food and is naturally occurring in certain foods, such as cheese, beets, meat and celery, plus many others. Salt is white and has finer granules than sugar. Many commercial salts include iodide, while others exclude it. Most salts are white, while some are naturally pale pink with minerals. Salt brings out the flavor of something and can create a tangy mouthfeel, if used in excess.
The peppercorn plant grows in tropical climate and produces tiny black fruit. The fruit is dried and become hard. At this point it is ground into a textured powder comprised of black and grey dots. It has a flavor that is spicy, pungent and sharp. Pepper is an extremely popular spice, especially in Western cuisines and lends a gentle heat to dishes. There are different varieties of black pepper and the flavor changes subtly because of this.
