This easy, no-cook chickpea cucumber salad is super fresh and flavourful, loaded with green onion and aromatic herbs plus crunchy fennel + almonds in a garlicky dressing.

Want to save this recipe?

Enter your email & I’ll send it to your inbox. Plus, get great new recipes from me every week!

You know that saying, cool as a cucumber? Well that’s the vibe I’m channeling with this crunchy, refreshing chickpea and cucumber salad…despite the June gloom that’s currently outside my window right now. Maybe if I eat like it’s a warm, sunny day, I might actually manifest it.

I am, without a doubt, built for sunlight and heat. May – September is my favourite part of the year and not the least of it is all the salads I want to eat.

No joke, I could eat a salad every single day and be thrilled. But I gotta be honest: I rarely eat a lettuce salad…even though to most folks, that’s what salad IS.

I crave TEXTURE. And FLAVOUR. Even in the simplest of salads…which is why I wanted to create this super easy chickpea and cucumber salad, but Desiree style. 

Crunchy fennel, and diced – NOT sliced cucumber play with chopped raw almonds so it’s satisfyingly (not annoyingly) crunchy and the green onion and fresh herbs keep it interesting, tossed with my garlic vinaigrette…the salad dressing so easy and so good, it’s one of the top recipes on my website!

My lazy heart AND my dietitian brain love a chickpea salad so much: plenty of fibre and a boost of plant-based protein…plus all those herbs that are packed with antioxidant phytochemicals make this a slam dunk of a picnic side dish or, let’s be honest, the kind of “I don’t wanna cook” dinner that will make you feel super smug because you avoided takeout and ate something healthy.

Get energized and love what you eat…my latest plant-based cookbook Plant Magic is filled with flavourful and fun recipes for the whole family!

A few tips and tricks for making this simple cucumber and chickpea salad

Because this 7 ingredient salad is so simple, I want to share a couple of flavour hacks with you..the first is that you don’t want to skimp on the aromatic herbs.

It won’t be as flavourful if you only use parsley (trust me, that’s what I did the first time and it was a bit meh). I really love adding basil or mint, but really anything…including the fennel fronds (low waste!) will add oomph.

Want to next level this salad? I didn’t include it as a core ingredient because they’re not always easy to find but store bought fried shallots are a super craveable addition to this salad.

Also, we’re doubling the salt in my garlic vinaigrette recipe, because chickpeas are little flavour sponges so it helps infuse them with more flavour!

More easy bean salad recipes

15 Minute Crunchy Chickpea and Cucumber Salad

6 side dish servings

Prep Time: 15 minutes mins

Total Time: 15 minutes mins

This easy, no-cook chickpea cucumber salad is super fresh and flavourful, loaded with green onion and aromatic herbs plus crunchy fennel + almonds in a garlicky dressing.

• 2 x 14 ounce cans chickpeas, rinsed and drained
• ½ medium English cucumber, diced
• 1 cup diced fennel, or sub 2 ribs celery
• 1 cup fresh herbs (packed measure), minced, I like ½ parsley and ½ basil or mint
• 2 green onions, thinly sliced
• ¼ cup raw almonds, chopped, or sub sunflower seeds
• 1 batch garlic vinaigrette, double the salt (1 tsp total)

Optional

• pinch dried chile flakes, if you want a bit of heat!
• storebought fried shallots, makes everything more craveable

• Shake up the garlic vinaigrette…the original recipe calls for ½ tsp each salt and sugar and I recommend you double that to 1 tsp each so the chickpeas soak up more flavour.

• Add the chickpeas, cucumber, fennel, herbs, green onions and almonds to a salad bowl and toss with the garlic vinaigrette…and you're done!

Make ahead tip: this salad keeps super well – and will get even more flavourful – but the herbs get wilt-y. So if you want to make ahead, just keep the herbs in a separate container until serving!