Gluten Free Tahini-Chickpea Dill Salad

If you are in search of a satisfying lunch that is packed with flavor and full of protein, you are in for a treat. This tahini-chickpea dill salad offers a delicious combination of tastes that comes together in minutes and provides an elevated, sophisticated lunch option without any fuss. You don’t have to hit up the food truck every day or eat the same boring lunch over and over again. Add this to your rotation for a real treat.

This is an excellent alternative to tuna salad and can be used as a sandwich spread with gluten-free bread, to top a leafy green salad blend, in a gluten-free roll, or on its own.

The tahini-chickpea dill salad comes together in minutes with just a few ingredients. It uses canned chickpeas as the base, and these can be mashed with a potato masher or blended with a hand-held immersion blender to get a consistency that’s just right for you.

The masher will leave things a little chunkier while the stick blender will give you a smoother overall texture. Make sure you don’t blend it too much or it will become like hummus. You want a chunky consistency for some texture. Of course, you can use a regular blender to make it into a smooth deli-style dill hummus if you’d like. It simply depends on your preferences.

Preparation is a cinch. You simply combine all of the ingredients into a large bowl and blend until you get the consistency you’d like! The only word of warning is to make sure your vessel is large enough to allow some room for movement in the blending phase. You don’t want chickpeas flying across your kitchen!

Chickpeas offer a relatively neutral flavor profile, so the stars of this dish are the dill and tahini. The tahini makes the salad rich and savory while the dill packs a flavorful punch, and the lemon juice adds a brightness that brings it all together.

This recipe doesn’t call for any salt, but if you are using unsalted chickpeas or homemade chickpeas from dried, you may want to add a few dashes of salt. Most canned chickpeas, though, contain salt already.

This is an excellent dish to bring for a potluck, and it could even be used as an appetizer before the main course. It’s most popular use, however, is for lunches. If you mash it directly in Tupperware with a lid, you can store it and grab some for lunch throughout the week. Ten minutes of work could provide you with a healthy, filling lunch for days!

INGREDIENTS

• 2 x 15 oz cans of chickpeas (drained)
• Juice of ½ a lemon
• 1 tbsp tahini sauce
• 2 tbsp whole grain mustard
• 1 tbsp of dried dill or chopped fresh

DIRECTIONS

• Add all ingredients to bowl or large vessel.
• Mash or blend until desired chunky texture is reached.
• Enjoy!

Joey Bruno runs ThriveCuisine.com where he shows people how easy it is to make healthy plant-based recipes. He also has a YouTube channel where he tests different equipment and gives people practical cooking advice.