Making a Cold Chickpea Salad

Chickpeas, also known as garbanzo beans, are a great source of nutrition. Best of all, they are filling and tasty. While there are many different ways to prepare chickpeas, here is a simple but visually attractive and appetizing recipe that even people who can't boil water can prepare.

Things You'll Need:

1 fifteen ounce can chickpeas
1 fifteen ounce can dark red kidney beans
1 fifteen ounce can black beans
1 medium purple onion
1 medium green bell pepper
1 sixteen ounce bottle of Italian dressing

Step 1

Open and drain the chickpeas, kidney beans, and black beans. Make sure that there is as little liquid retained as possible.

Step 2

Place the mixture into a large mixing bowl. Set the bowl aside for a moment.

Step 3

Chop the purple onion and green bell pepper. Keep in mind the colors of the pepper and onions will be more apparent if you chop them coarsely chop rather than dicing finely.

Step 4

Add the chopped onion and bell pepper to the bean and chickpea mixture. Using a slotted spoon, mix the beans, pepper and onions thoroughly.

Step 5

Pour the Italian dressing over the other ingredients. Stir to make sure all the ingredients are evenly coated.

Step 6

Place the chickpea salad into the refrigerator to chill. Ideally, the salad should be chilled for at least an hour.

Step 7

Transfer the salad into a serving dish just before meal time. This recipe will easily provide enough servings to accommodate four to six adults.

Tips & Warnings

This cold chickpea salad can be prepared a couple of hours before serving, or allowed to chill in the refrigerator overnight. Assembling the salad a day before allows more time for the herbs and spices in the dressing to intermingle with the flavors of the other ingredients.

Don't leave the salad on the counter after combining the ingredients. While the dish will be perfectly edible at room temperature, it is much better when served cold.