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This creamy chickpea salad sandwich is a delicious healthy lunch ready in 10 minutes. Made with smashed chickpeas and crunchy vegetables, it’s packed with protein and flavor.
I usually eat very simply at breakfast and lunch to spend most of my time and energy on making dinner. Simple doesn’t mean sacrificing for flavor, though. One of my favorite easy lunch tricks ever is this chickpea salad sandwich!
It’s basically a vegetarian chicken salad sandwich, or a chickpea tuna salad. Made with smashed chickpeas, crunchy veggies, and a creamy dressing, it’s so tasty that it’s become one of my most popular chickpea recipes ever! (My kids even try to sneak bites while we’re making it.) I first posted this recipe in 2019, and readers have been loving it ever since.
5 Star Reader Review
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “So easy and delicious! I went vegetarian over 2 years ago and have been on the search for an easy, healthy, and satisfying lunch recipe. This chickpea salad sandwich is it! It took no more than 10 min to prepare and it came out delicious! Will be eating this probably daily lol!” -Sabrina
How to Make a Chickpea Salad Sandwich
This chickpea salad sandwich takes just 10 minutes to whip up the chickpea salad and throw it onto a sandwich. Here are the basic steps.
Step 1: Thinly slice the celery and green onions.
Step 2: Make smashed chickpeas by mashing them with a fork. Add the vegetables, mayonnaise, lemon juice, and celery seed.
Step 3: Layer it onto bread, and you’ve got a hearty vegetarian sandwich. I like to spread the bread with mayo or hummus for even more flavor.
Canned vs. Cooked Chickpeas
You can use either canned or cooked chickpeas for this chickpea salad sandwich. (You’ll get the health benefits from either option!) My preference is canned, but both work. You can make Instant Pot chickpeas or cook them in a Dutch oven.
Here are a few more notes on the differences between canned vs. cooked:
- Canned chickpeas have a bit of salt added, so add a few pinches of kosher salt if you’re using cooked chickpeas.
- The texture of cooked chickpeas can be slightly drier than canned, so you may have to add a bit more mayonnaise to the chickpea salad. Because of this, I prefer making it with canned chickpeas.
Pro Tips for the Perfect Chickpea Salad
- Slice your celery and green onions thin. Large vegetable chunks can overpower the sandwich: you’ll want a subtle crunch in each bite.
- Salt is your friend. Taste the chickpea mixture before assembling your sandwich and adjust the salt. The flavor should “pop” when you’ve added enough. Under-seasoned chickpea salad tastes bland, so if your first bite is bland add a pinch of salt or another dollop of mayonnaise.
- Let it rest if you can. While you can eat this immediately, the flavors deepen if you let the salad sit for even 15-20 minutes.
Variations Worth Trying
I love this chickpea salad as is, but there are a few other variations I love too:
- Dill Pickle Version: This is my go-to variation, similar to my Dill Pickle Chicken Salad. Add ½ cup chopped dill pickles, 1 spoonful of sweet pickle relish, ¼ teaspoon dried dill, and 1 tablespoon fresh dill.
- Cranberry: A few readers mentioned loving adding dried cranberries and fresh dill.
- Mediterranean Style: Add diced cucumber, sun-dried tomatoes, and a pinch of za’atar. Serve in pita with falafel sauces toppings.
- Curry-Spiced: Mix in ½ to 1 teaspoon curry powder and a handful of diced apple and golden raisins.
- Buffalo-Style: Add Frank’s hot sauce or buffalo sauce to taste. Top with shredded carrots and celery sticks.
Serving Ideas
I like to keep the toppings pretty minimal for this chickpea tuna sandwich. A fun trick is spreading hummus onto the bread slices before assembling the sandwich. I happened to have it on hand, and it made the sandwich even more delicious!
I also like adding leafy greens as another texture contrast. If you’re up for it, serve it on homemade bread like my popular sandwich bread or sourdough bread. Here are a few more topping ideas:
- Pickled red onions
- Shredded carrots
- Sprouts or microgreens
- Fresh tomatoes
- Spicy mayo
- Potato chips (if you’re into the crunchy sandwich type of thing)
- Pickles
Storing Leftovers
Leftover chickpea salad stores up to 3 days refrigerated. (Beans have a pretty short shelf life so don’t push it!) The chickpea salad tastes great when made in advance, as the flavors intensify over time.
Assemble sandwiches just before eating to prevent soggy bread. If you’re packing this for lunch, it should be ok for a few hours at room temperature.
Dietary Notes
This chickpea salad sandwich recipe is vegetarian, vegan (with vegan mayo or cashew cream), plant-based, and dairy-free.
Frequently Asked Questions
A chickpea salad sandwich is a vegetarian alternative to traditional chicken or tuna salad sandwiches. It features mashed or chopped chickpeas combined with mayonnaise (vegan or regular), celery, onion, herbs, spices, and other flavorful additions.
There are endless possibilities for customizing your chickpea salad sandwich! Add chopped pickles, relish, or capers for a tangy twist. Incorporate chopped apples, grapes, or dried cranberries for a touch of sweetness.
Spice things up with curry powder, cumin, or smoked paprika. Use different herbs like dill, parsley, or cilantro. Add chopped nuts or seeds for crunch.
Chickpea Salad Sandwich
This creamy chickpea salad sandwich is a delicious healthy lunch ready in 10 minutes. Made with smashed chickpeas and crunchy vegetables, it’s packed with protein and flavor.
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 0 minutes
- Total Time: 10 minutes
- Yield: 2 sandwiches 1x
- Category: Main Dish
- Method: Mixed
- Cuisine: American
Ingredients
- 15 ounce can chickpeas or (1 ½ cups chickpeas cooked from dry*)
- 1 rib celery
- 3 green onions
- 1 to 2 tablespoons mayonnaise, vegan mayonnaise, or cashew cream
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon celery seed
- Kosher salt and fresh ground pepper
- 4 slices bread (Try my homemade bread.)
- Lettuce, spring green mix, or sprouts
- Hummus, optional
Instructions
- Thinly slice the celery. (If it’s a large rib, cut in half lengthwise first.) Thinly slice the green onions.
- Drain and rinse the chickpeas.
- In a medium bowl, smash the chickpeas with a fork.
- Combine the chickpeas with the chopped celery and green onions, mayonnaise, lemon juice, and celery seed.
- Add about ¼ to ½ teaspoon kosher salt, depending on your chickpea brand and taste preferences, and fresh ground pepper to taste. Taste and salt until the flavor pops! If the salad is dry, add more mayonnaise. (Cooked chickpeas have a drier texture than canned.)
- Assemble the chickpea salad sandwich. If desired, spread the bread with hummus. Top the sandwich with lettuce or greens and chickpea spread.
- The chickpea spread stores for up to 3 days refrigerated.
Notes
*If using cooked chickpeas, remember that canned chickpeas have a bit of salt added, so you’ll want to flavor with a few pinches of kosher salt before using. Also, the texture of chickpeas cooked at home can be drier than canned, so you may have to add a bit more mayonnaise.
Dill pickle variation: Add ½ cup chopped dill pickles, 1 spoonful sweet pickle relish, ¼ teaspoon dried dill, and ½ tablespoon chopped dill to the mix.
It would be helpful to list sodium content along with the other nutritional items.
Also, it is possible to get canned garbanzo beans with no salt added which I use for everything. It’s really important for people who need to watch their salt intake.
We know many people watch their sodium intake closely, so to be extra careful, we don’t include sodium in our recipe information. This is because ingredients like canned garbanzos and soy sauce can vary in their sodium content, and we wouldn’t want to give you inaccurate info!
If you want, you can still get an estimated sodium breakdown! Just pop the recipe into this handy website: https://whisk.com/recipe-nutrition-calculator/
This way you can check with your own ingredients. Thank you for reading!
Instead of adding lemon juice, I add a little bit of dill pickle juice from a jar if dill pickles, and chop up a few dill pickle slices. This really adds a nice flavor to chickpea salad!
I found this very bland as written but if you add lots of additions like Dijon mustard and plenty of garlic/onion powder, it’s quite delicious for an easy meal. Thanks!!
Made this today and it was so easy! I like chicken salad with grapes, so I tried adding them to this chickpea salad. Really good!