Kale Chickpea Salad
on Jan 14, 2026
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With a mix of Mediterranean ingredients, this kale chickpea salad is a fresh chopped salad that you can eat with a spoon. It has sun dried tomatoes, kalamata olives, red onions and feta in addition to chickpeas and leafy greens, all tossed in a zesty red wine vinaigrette. You can serve this salad as a side or main dish for a lunch or dinner.
Table of Contents
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
Think of this recipe as an off-season Greek salad. That’s a compliment! When it’s not tomato season all I want are fresh tomatoes, so I turn to sun-dried tomatoes to get me through the chillier months. This also salad also has olives, feta and red onions. Greens come in the form of kale instead of cucumbers.
This salad is great for meal prep. Because the ingredients are sturdy with kale and chickpeas, this salad will keep its good texture and bite.
You can serve this kale salad as a main dish or a side dish. It goes great with other recipes with Mediterranean flavors and ingredients. I love recipes that taste like a getaway especially during fall and winter.
The Ingredients
This is what you need:
- Kale: Either curly green kale or lacinato kale will work for this salad. The most important thing is that you tear the leaves off the thick stems and then finely chop them.
- Chickpeas: The recipe calls for canned chickpeas, which are one of my pantry must-haves no matter the season. It is up to you if you want to take the time to pull the skins off the chickpeas after you drain and rinse them.
- Sun dried tomatoes come in jars packed in oil. Use a fork to get them out, leaving the oil behind since you don’t need it. If you buy sun dried tomatoes sold dry in bags, you will have to soak and rehydrate them.
- Olives: I like kalamata olives, but you can also go with a Greek olive medley. Just make sure the olives are pitted, so you can easily chop them.
- Feta: You can buy a container of crumbled feta, but if you want more variety in the size of your crumbles then break up a block yourself.
- Red onions: So they are well distributed throughout the salad, I finely chop the onions. Then you get that sharp accent in every bite.
- Parsley: I finish the salad with chopped fresh herbs. If you have chives or basil, you can substitute or use more than one type.
- Red wine vinaigrette: The dressing has minced, garlic, whole grain mustard, red wine vinegar, fresh lemon juice, extra virgin olive oil, dried oregano, kosher salt and black pepper.
How To Make This Kale Chickpea Salad
- Make the vinaigrette. In a bowl big enough for the whole salad, whisk the garlic, mustard, oregano, salt, pepper, lemon juice, vinegar and oil.
- Stir the rest of the ingredients into the vinaigrette. That includes the chickpeas, onions, tomatoes, olives, feta, parsley and kale.
Serving
With both chickpeas and kale, this is a salad that’s filling enough to be a main dish. You can add cooked quinoa, farro or barley to make it even more hearty. It also works as a side dish with pasta and other Mediterranean recipes. As mentioned, this is a year round salad. If it’s summer and tomato season, you can use halved cherry tomatoes instead of sun dried tomatoes.
Storage & Leftovers
If possible, plan ahead for meal prep. Even though kale stays more crisp unlike delicate lettuces, try to only dress the amount of salad you are planning to eat in one meal. Then you should make the dressing in a separate small bowl.
You can save the salad up to 3 days in an airtight container in the refrigerator. If you have extra vinaigrette, put it in a separate mason jar or another container. Let it sit at room temperature for 15 minutes, so the oil can turn to liquid again if it hardens in the chill of the fridge.
Recipe Tips
- If you are making this salad in advance, whisk the dressing in a separate bowl. A salad without dressing will always keep its freshness better than one you have tossed in vinaigrette.
- You can add cooked grains to the salad. Quinoa, barley or farro add texture to the chopped kale and chickpeas and turn it into an even bigger, meal-worthy salad.
- Instead of chickpeas, you can use white beans in this salad. I like cannellini beans because they are plump and closest in size to garbanzo beans (a.k.a. chickpeas).
More Kale Salad Recipes
Roasted Beet Orange Kale Salad
Kale Sweet Potato Salad
Kale Quinoa Salad
Roasted Fingerling Potato Salad
Kale Apple Salad
More Chickpea Recipes
Quinoa Chickpea Salad
Roasted Tomato & Chickpea Greek Salad
Roasted Vegetable Pasta Salad
Cucumber Chickpea Salad
Mediterranean Three Bean Salad
Find more salad ideas in my seasonal salad roundup featuring leafy green salads, bean salads and pasta salads. Also, if you love chickpeas, checkout my full guide to cooking with chickpeas, one of the best pantry ingredients.
Kale Chickpea Salad
Ingredients
For vinaigrette
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- 1 tablespoon whole grain mustard
- 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 lemon, juice
- 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
- 1/4 cup olive oil
For salad
- 15 ounce can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
- 1/4 cup finely chopped red onions
- 1/4 cup chopped sun dried tomatoes, oil drained
- 1/4 cup roughly chopped pitted kalamata olives
- 1/4 cup crumbled feta
- 2 tablespoons chopped parsley
- 4 cups chopped kale leaves
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Instructions
- In a large bowl, whisk together the garlic, mustard, oregano, kosher salt, black pepper, lemon juice, vinegar and olive oil.
- Stir the chickpeas, onions, tomatoes, olives, feta, parsley and kale into the vinaigrette.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
