Zucchini Chickpea Salad

with lemon dill vinaigrette

Crunchy fresh zucchini with tender, creamy chickpeas, fresh sweet tomatoes and red onion with a lovely light lemon dill vinaigrette, this plant-based, protein-rich salad might just become your favorite mid-summer salad, especially if you top it with crumbled feta to add a little extra creaminess and flavor.

(Does anyone else see a smiling chickpea in the above picture? I totally didn’t notice until I started writing this post.)

Come August, many people start to cringe at the mention of zucchini. Especially when the zucchini start coming in from the garden. We all know how that goes. That’s why there’s a National Sneak Zucchini on your Neighbor’s Porch Day, after all. In case you’re planning to do such a thing, August 8 is the day to do it! You still have time to gather up the biggest, baddest zucchini you can find. I’ve already shared some of my parents’ fresh garden zucchini with friends and neighbors and I’m totally looking forward to harvesting my own!

I know many people tire of zucchini, but for me, I just can’t get enough of zucchini season! I never tire of finding new ways to use this versatile vegetable (or is it a fruit?) Okay, technically zucchini IS a fruit, but most of us think of it as a veggie. Whatever you call it, zucchini is super versatile. You can use zucchini in quickbread, cake, pizza (in the crust or as THE crust or as a topping!), tacos, ravioli, salsa, brownies, with seafood, in hash, as fries, with baked eggs … and oh the list goes on. Every year I swear I find a new creative use for zucchini!

So this year, I had this idea to make a zucchini chickpea salad to use up some of the zucchini my mom and dad gave me (before mine start coming!) along with the rest of my store-bought sweet mini tomatoes before my tomato jungle starts producing like mad. (It really is a tomato jungle … one of the plants is taller than my son who is 6’5″. Granted, it’s in a raised bed so subtract a few inches, but STILL … I can’t believe what a beautiful tangled mess my tomato garden has become. Every day I go out and gaze at them and anticipate the day when I can harvest them!)

Oh look that little chickpea in the photo is in this NEXT pic too, smiling a big goofy grin, very much like I do when I come in from visiting my plant babies in the garden. I have only been able to harvest just one small tomato so far, and my first zucchini has set on and I am tracking its growth. I’m SUPER excited!!! Just another day or two and I should have a nice-sized zucchini from my very own garden.

This salad makes the most of all that fresh garden (or farmer’s market) goodness. It’s simple, it’s colorful, it’s got all the texture and flavor contrasts that make a good salad great and it’s really easy to throw together. It is still good the next day and even the day after that. I’m on day three and still enjoying it. If you have a gathering you’re going to and zucchini to use up, I highly recommend this salad.

For best results, use fresh garden zucchini and tomatoes … or choose some really nice juicy, sweet tomatoes and crisp, crunchy zucchini. Stay away from the limp zucc’s for this salad (if they have any give to them when you touch them or they don’t feel firm to the touch, save those for cooking) … If you need to cheat and use store-bought canned chickpeas, heck, I won’t tell if you won’t!

I do also recommend fresh-squeezing the lemon and peeling/chopping your own garlic. Also, don’t buy that pre-crumbled feta … buy a block of feta and use your fingers to crumble some of it over your salad. It’s really simple (yes your fingers will get a little cheese on them but hey, that’s when you can lick all the cheese right off your fingers! what’s so bad about that?) Buying a block of feta and crumbling it yourself will not only last longer in your fridge and cost you less, it will have MUCH better flavor. Plus there’s that side benefit of licking that good feta flavor off your fingers. Are you convinced yet? (Just make sure you wash your hands after licking and before touching the food again.)

If you really want to elevate the flavor of your feta, try marinating your feta. Then use the oil from the marinade in your salad dressing. You’ll seriously love the results. Crumbling marinated feta over your salad is a whole new level of finger licking revelry.

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