Spicy Chickpea Salad

Spicy chickpeas with tahini, served with refreshing cucumber salad.

It’s a vibrant, flavour-packed dish that’s perfect for a light yet satisfying plant-based meal! This combination of spicy chickpeas, creamy tahini, and crisp cucumber salad is a popular Palestinian dish that celebrates bold, harmonious flavours, while also being nutritious and easy to prepare.

Ingredients

Chickpeas:

1 x 400g tin chickpeas

2 tbsp olive oil, plus more for drizzling

1 clove of garlic, crushed

1 tsp ground cumin

¼ tsp smoked paprika

1/3 tsp Aleppo chilli flaked

1/3 tsp sweet paprika

1/8 tsp ground turmeric

¼ salt

Tahini sauce:

1tbsp fresh lemon juice, plus more to taste

1 garlic clove, crushed

¼ tsp salt

75g tahini

About 35ml ice cold water

Cucumber salad

½ iceberg lettuce head, cut into large pieces

2 small or 1 large cucumber, thinly sliced on an angle

2 tbls of each mint and parsley, chopped

1½ tbsp lemon juice

2 tbsp olive oil

¼ tsp salt

Black pepper

Method

Preheat oven on 200C F.

Put the chickpeas, olive oil, garlic, spices and salt a medium bowl and mix well. Spread the chickpea mixture onto lined baking dish and roast for 30 minutes, stirring a couple of times during. While the chickpeas are cooking, make the tahini sauce: put all the tahini ingredients in a small bowl and mix well until it is smooth and creamy.

Place all the cucumber salad ingredients in a mixing bowl and toss well.

When ready to serve, spread the tahini sauce onto serving platter, pile the chickpeas on top and the serve the cucumber salad on the side. Serve with flat bread and lemon wedges.