Name: Roasted Chickpea Panzanella Salad
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 40 min
Total time: 50 min
Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients: 1 (14.5 oz) can chickpeas; 3-4 garlic cloves, minced; Salt and pepper to taste; 1/8 tsp garlic powder; 1 cucumber, diced; 4 marinated pepperazzi peppers from Giant Eagle olive and antipasto bar (optional); 8 oz cherry tomatoes, halved; 1/2 small red onion, cut into thin strips; 2 Tbsp olive oil (or use marinated oil from pepperazzi peppers); 2 Tbsp red wine vinegar; 4 basil leaves, minced; A handful of fresh parsley, minced (to taste)

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Roasted garlic chickpeas mixed together with chopped veggies and herbs then tossed in oil and vinegar to create a healthy, flavorful, low calorie Italian lunch! So good you'll forget you're eating a salad! Only 149 calories per serving!

Eating salads for lunch makes me depressed. Salad is the food that my food eats. Unless they're loaded with bacon, blue cheese, and eggs or preceded by the words "pasta" or "potato," I'm not interested. I'll never be happy with a normal salad, which lead me to creating this roasted chickpea panzanella salad!

First of all, I didn't even know what the word panzanella meant until I started doing some recipe research. Turns out it is a chopped Italian salad that combines stale bread chunks with tomatoes, olive oil and vinegar, with some optional onion or basil added in. I have probably eaten it a hundred times before but thought it was just bruschetta! This inspired me to create a panzanella salad with my favorite bruschetta flavors, however, I substituted roasted chickpeas for the bread to further cut down the calories!

The best part of this salad is that it can be customized to make as much or little as you need and you can toss in virtually any other vegetable that you might need to use up. Plus it is only 149 calories per serving!

ROASTED CHICKPEA PANZANELLA SALAD

149 calories per serving

Since this recipe is extremely customizable, feel free to alter your ingredient amounts to suit your needs and tastes! The recipe here was enough for me to eat for lunch for 6 days (alongside a slice of prosciutto for a tasty Italian low calorie meal!)

First, you're going to start by roasting the chickpeas. I already have a recipe on the blog for garlic and parmesan chickpeas but I altered them a little bit for this salad. You'll want to first rinse and drain one 14.5 oz can of chickpeas. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees and prep a baking sheet by lining it with foil and spraying it with cooking spray

Next, fully dry the chickpeas by rolling them a handful at a time between two paper towels. You can use the same motion as if you were creating a cookie dough ball. This will cause the shells to fall off, which you can dispose of. (Side note: It is not necessary to remove the shells, but it is easy to do!)

Add the chickpeas into a mixing bowl then add in 1 minced garlic clove, ⅛ teaspoon garlic powder, and salt and pepper to taste. Mix to coat. Pour chickpeas onto the prepared baking sheet in a single layer, then spray lightly with cooking spray.

Roast the chickpeas for 40 minutes, flipping halfway.

While the chickpeas roast, prep the rest of your veggies for the salad. I used 8 oz of halved cherry tomatoes, ½ thinly sliced small red onion, 1 diced cucumber, and 3 minced garlic cloves.

I also threw in a few marinated pepperazzi peppers that I am obsessed with from our Giant Eagle olive and antipasto bar. They're small, round, red, orange and green peppers and they are the star of any charcuterie board for me! I also scoop up some of the seasoned oil that they sit in to use as my olive oil for this salad. All of this is optional, but if you can find these peppers I recommend you slice them up and add them in!

Add all the prepped veggies from above to a large bowl and drizzle with 2 tablespoon of olive oil (or marinated pepper oil if you bought the peppers I told you about!) and 2 tablespoon red wine vinegar. Next, mince about 4 basil leaves and a handful of parsley and toss into the bowl. Add salt and pepper to taste, and mix all ingredients together.

Once the chickpeas are done, toss these into the salad as well. You can serve this immediately but it tastes better after it sits overnight! If you are going to be letting it sit for a while, I recommend adding in the chickpeas once you're ready to serve it so they stay crunchy, similar to stale bread!

Enjoy! 🙂