Crispy Chickpea Rainbow Salad & Creamy Vegan Yogurt Dressing

When the weather is nice and the greens are fresh and crispy, nothing is better than a big ol’ satisfying salad.

When it comes to making salad, I don’t like to stand on ceremony, I like to paint outside the lines by using vegetables not traditionally associated with a boring salad, such as buffalo vegan chicken. Don’t just limit yourself to tomatoes and cucumbers, which are incredible by the way, but they aren’t the only way to make a salad.

For today’s vegan salad recipe, I decided to go with a rainbow theme. Why?

Because the more colors in your salad, the more nutrients you’re giving your body, it really is just that simple.

Remember to rinse all of your ingredients before you eat them!

When it comes to making a proper salad, the one ingredient that I cannot do without is a salad spinner. I know, it’s just one more thing to clog up the kitchen and I agree. I get it and I respect it, but if you don’t want soggy, wet salad that not kind of vegan salad dressing will stick to, you need to spin those leafy greens until dry.

Okay, rant over.

Let’s get down to the ingredients. This is what I used and the weight for two salads. Expand the recipe out as needed.

Step One: drain and rinse one can of chickpeas. Toss with salt, pepper, garlic powder, smoky paprika, cayenne pepper, cumin and garam masala. Bake in the oven on 225C for about 15 minutes until slightly crunchy.

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Cool slightly before adding to salad.

Step Two: Rinse and chop your ingredients.

You can chop them up however you want, just make sure they are uniform and bite-size, but if you don’t mind getting a little messy, chop them up any ol’ kind of way.

Step Three: Add the ingredients to a big salad bowl and when I say big, I mean BIG. A bowl that’s large enough to hold all of the ingredients and toss them without spilling most of it on the table.

Step Four: Make the dressing. Mix vegan yogurt, mustard, fresh dill and pesto (click the link for the ramson pesto recipe) in a small bowl. Stir until everything is combined. Set aside.

Easy vegan salads & oil free salad dressing recipe

Step Five: Toss the ingredients a few times before you add the salad dressing to make sure you get an even coat on each piece. Then add the salad dressing and toss with tongs or a salad tosser set, because they are totally adorable.

Step Six: Enjoy eating a meal that is healthy, satisfying and calorie friendly.

Note: There are also radish sprouts in this salad but when I weighed them there weren’t enough to get past zero so I didn’t add it to the list of ingredients.