Mediterranean Chopped Salad

Step-By-Step Instructions

Whisk together the whole-grain mustard, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and red onions to create your dressing. Pour the dressing at the bottom of a large salad bowl. Add the lettuce, tomatoes, red bell pepper, cucumber, chickpeas, brown rice, dill, basil, sundried tomatoes, baby capers, olives, and toasted pine nuts. Mix until everything is beautifully combined, and serve your gorgeous salad!

Variations and Tips

• Boost the Protein: This salad makes for two very generous servings, with each serving containing 20 g of protein. To boost this amount, an easy swap would be to replace the 1½ cups of cooked chickpeas with 2 cups of cooked brown or black lentils. This alone would take it to 27 g of protein. Another idea could be to pair it with some grilled tofu (my Herby Lemon Tofu would be so good in this!).
• Salad Prep: If you wish to turn this salad into a meal prep, you can use our classic layering technique. In a fitted container, start with the sauce, followed by the chickpeas, rice, capsicum, tomatoes, cucumber, olives, sundried tomatoes, capers, pine nuts, and fresh herbs. Skip the lettuce, as it won’t stay fresh long enough. Alternatively, try our Easy Brown Rice Mediterranean Salad. It’s so delicious and makes for the perfect lunch to have at work.
• More Veggies: Feel free to include additional vegetables like spinach or arugula. You can also mix the herbs and add fresh parsley or oregano.
• Change It Up: Swap out chickpeas for any other bean variety you love. Lentils or white beans would be delicious here.
• Olives Twist: Use kalamata olives or any juicy olives that you can get your hands on; they would all be delicious.
• Sodium tip: You might notice that I didn’t add any salt to this recipe (it might be a first!), and I would recommend waiting until you’ve tried a couple of bites of the salad before deciding to add more. I’ve added a lot of ingredients that pack big umami flavors, such as olives, capers, and sundried tomatoes. Like me, you might find that it’s salty enough. However, these ingredients do vary a lot depending on the brand, so if you choose to add some salt, I would recommend sea salt flakes and perhaps a crack or two of black pepper.
• If you feel like it, a little bit of vegan feta cheese goes a long way and pairs beautifully with our salad. You could even have it on a toasted slice of our 1 Ingredient Buckwheat Bread to make it even more satisfying.