I’m usually pretty good about packing myself a lunch to take to work during the week. But lately I’ve also been trying to pack lunch for R. What have I learned? Men eat a lot. I mean, like an obscene amount. There are nights where I’m pretty sure we eat the same for dinner, but there’s something about lunch that apparently turns R into a ravenous bottomless pit. The salads and soups I was making him weren’t cutting it, and I decided I had to come up with something maybe more reminiscent about non-vegan lunches to keep him from eating a second lunch at 4pm. And so this chickpea salad was born.

I modeled it after a tuna salad, using fresh dill, celery, vegan mayo, and brown mustard. Using a hand-held potato masher I broke the chickpeas down just enough to make them more like a salad consistency, but not too much that they were complete mush. The texture was surprisingly similar to a tuna salad, and the flavor was spot on (without all that yucky fishy flavor).

I served them two different ways – for R as a traditional sandwich with added avocado and lettuce. Paired with a soup, it was enough to keep R full all afternoon. It was big and hearty and exactly like you’d want for a substantial lunch.

For me, I liked to make it as a wrap. The sandwich was too much for me, I only ate half of it. The wrap was the perfect answer. I still added avocado and lettuce, but without as much room for filling it was a better portion size for me.

Either way you serve it, the chickpea salad is a great spring way to switch up lunch. It’s super easy to make, I managed to whip it up in the morning before work and not be late. It’s going to be one of my go-to recipes for the week. All I have to figure out next is to tweak it a bit to be more like a chicken salad. I can’t wait to try it again. This will be in my standard rotation for a long time to come.