Greek Chickpea Salad – an easy palate

This Greek Chickpea Salad is my favorite salad every day! It’s packed with flavorful Kalamata olives, cherry tomatoes, and chickpeas for protein. It’s perfect for a healthy lunch or with your favorite weeknight meal!

Greek salad has been my favorite for years! And this special chickpea version I make all the time. It’s my go-to choice for adding to lunches or serving with any weeknight dinner.

Traditional Greek salad is made with really simple ingredients – Tomatoes, Kalamata olives, feta cheese, red onions, cucumber and olive oil with salt and pepper. This version adds a little more with chickpeas for plant-based protein, more veggies, and a Greek salad dressing with fresh herbs to add another layer of flavor.

It’s one of my personal favorites that I make every week and I hope it becomes one of yours too!

salad ingredients

Below is the full list of ingredients needed to make this salad!

Green: I prefer a mix of mixed veggies, but you can use arugula, spinach, or kale as well.
Chickpeas: You need cooked chickpeas – I love using this brand!
Cucumber: very common in traditional Greek salads.
Red onion: also a must! If the red onion flavor is too intense for you, you can marinate the chopped onion in the dressing before serving. This will help tone down the onion flavor!
Kalamata Olives: These tangy olives are a classic ingredient in Greek salads! Buy pitted olives to make chopping easier.
Tomatoes: I love using cherry tomatoes!
Greek Dressing: Use an easy homemade dressing for this salad that sings with flavor!

Easy Homemade Greek Dressing

Skip the store-bought dressing and make your own at home with this easy Greek dressing recipe! It’s loaded with pantry staples to make it easy, and it’s packed with bright and tangy flavors. This salad dressing is ALWAYS in my pantry and only takes a few minutes to make.

The ingredients for the dressing are: high-quality olive oil, red wine vinegar, garlic powder (or fresh garlic), fresh or dried oregano, maple syrup, and salt and pepper!

Tips for Success

Other veggies and herbs we like to add. This salad is so easy to make! We like to add creamy avocado, roasted red peppers or diced raw red peppers, and microgreens. For herbs, I like to add chopped fresh basil, thyme, or parsley to the dressing!

Make it with or without feta. Traditional Greek salad is always topped with sprinkles of flavorful feta cheese – which I love! But since I make this salad so often, I don’t always want to serve it with cheese. So if you want to make this salad vegan/dairy free, omit the feta! But if you want it to taste like a traditional feta, by all means add it!

How to make it in time. The best way to make this salad ahead of time is to cut all the ingredients and separate them individually into containers or ziplock plastic bags. Refrigerate until ready to serve, then assemble the salad and serve! If the salad is prepared whole too far in advance, the vegetables may become too soft and wilt when sitting together. Keeping them separate will ensure they retain their texture and flavor!

Store dressing at room temperature. This salad dressing is best kept at room temperature and not refrigerated! We keep it sealed in a mason jar for up to 2 weeks at a time. If you use fresh herbs, they will lose their vibrant color the longer the dressing sits, but the flavor should not change.

What to serve it with

This salad goes with so many dishes! But some of my favorite dishes to serve with it are Rosemary Lemon Chicken with Potatoes, Lemon Chicken Piccata, and Crispy Herbed Chicken Thighs.

add egg white – If you just want to serve the salad alone, you can add protein like grilled or roasted chicken, grilled or roasted salmon, or any type of white fish!