The cool thing about this chickpea salad is how the roasted fennel, peppers, and onions add such wonderful flavors to this dish that it requires no dressing. Just fresh mint, lemon juice, salt and pepper.  My friend Shalini made this fennel and chickpea salad for lunch one day that was positively outstanding. Here is the recipe.

Shalini’s Roasted Fennel & Chickpea Salad
recipe courtesy of Shalini
serves 4 

Ingredients:

• 1-cup cracked wheat cooked with water or 1 cup cooked quinoa.  Shalini used cracked wheat in her salad but I didn’t have any at hand so I used quinoa instead.
• 1 onion roughly chopped
• 1 bell pepper cut into small bite size pieces
• 1 garlic clove cut in half
• 1 fennel bulb thinly sliced
• 1 can of garbanzo beans also known as chickpeas, drained and rinsed (about 1 -2 cups cooked chickpeas)
• Some mint leaves chopped finely – 1 tbsp
• Juice of 1 lemon
• Salt and pepper to your taste.
• Olive oil

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
• Toss chopped onions and bell peppers with 1tbsp olive oil. Place on a baking sheet and roast for 20-30 minutes until caramelized. Set aside.

• Rub fennel slices with garlic and toss with 1 tbsp olive oil and roast for 30 minutes until tender. Set aside.

• Make the salad. In a bowl add cooked quinoa or cracked wheat, add all the roasted veggies, chick peas, chopped mint leaves, salt and pepper to taste, and juice of 1 lemon. Toss all the ingredients together. Taste and adjust accordingly for salt and pepper. Salad is ready.

Serve salad with garnish of mint leaves. You can also save some of the hairy leaves from the fennel bulb and add that as garnish.

Shalini and I