Mediterranean Chickpea Salad
This is my absolute favorite salad to meal prep for lunch! It’s simply quinoa, spinach, red peppers, tomatoes, and chickpeas (for plant-based protein). I try to eat vegan for lunch in order to decrease my consumption of animal products. I rarely eat red meat, but I do eat chicken and salmon with dinner. Eating plant-based lunches is a good routine to follow and also lowers my carbon footprint on the environment. You don’t have to eat 100% plant-based, though–any step towards incorporating more plant-based foods into your diet helps!
Since most of my classes are around lunch time, I don’t have much time to go home and cook or pick something up. And even if I do decide to go out, the gluten-free options are slim pickings. It’s so much easier to pack my own lunch and snacks, and it’s cheaper, too. I carry food on me to last most of the day, so much so that my friends call me a walking fridge! Cold salads are the easiest to pack, since it’s hard to find microwaves on campus. Plus they have long lines around lunch time. I always make Sunday my meal prep/grocery run day! I also like to batch cook sheet pan meals for dinner and store the leftovers in the fridge to reheat in order to save time.
Lastly, I topped my salad with dang’s sriracha spice thai rice chips for an added crunch. My spice tolerance is extremely low, but these have the perfect amount of spice for me to handle.
Dang is one of my favorite healthy snack companies. Their products are tasty, crunchy, gluten-free, and keto, too! There is so much flavor packed into each product. They have been satisfying my late-night cravings and serve as an afternoon pick-me-up! I love their coconut chips and keto bars as well!
Mediterranean Chickpea Salad
Megan | March 25, 2020
- prep time: 10 minutes
- cook time: 20 minutes
- total time: 30 minutes
Servings:4
Ingredients:
- Salad
- 1 can chickpeas
- 1 bag of spinach
- 1 persian/english cucumber, chopped
- 1 small box of cherry tomatoes, halved
- 1 red bell pepper, chopped
- 1 cup quinoa
- dang sticky rice chips
- Dressing
- 4 tbsp olive oil
- 1/2 lemon, juiced
- 1 tbsp red wine vinegar
- 2 tbsp agave, or honey
- 1 tsp Dijon mustard
Instructions:
- Cook quinoa according to package instructions.
- Distribute the rest of the ingredients into 4 containers.
- To make the dressing, shake all the ingredients together in a jar.
Dietary Information
Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free, Vegan