Roasted Chickpea, Tomato & Sausage Salad with Lemon Tahini Dressing
This salad has always been one of my favorite concoctions that I’ve come up with on a day where I had a bunch of random things in the fridge to use up. It’s actually one of my first recipes I posted on my Instagram when I didn’t have my blog running.
It begins with a nice bed of mixed greens, I used an arugula and spinach mix. Next some thinly sliced cucumber and roasted chickpeas and grape tomatoes. Finally some warm sausage and a homemade lemon tahini dressing.
Other add-ons such as red onion, green onion, olive and parmesan cheese are also options if you have them around or need to use them up. There’s also room to switch up the protein. You can try ground chicken, turkey or more chickpeas for a vegan/vegetarian option. However the fennel in the Italian sausage really adds flavor so if you use another protein I recommend seasoning your new protein with fennel or adding some fresh fennel to the mix.
I like a nice warm salad so i heat up my sausage, tomatoes and chickpeas before adding to the salad, but it also tastes great cold if that’s not your thing.
The Tahini Lemon dressing recipe is to die for! If you don’t make this salad, then I definitely recommend at least trying out the dressing.
Serves 4
Ingredients
Roasted Tomatoes & Chickpeas
10 oz grape tomatoes, halved
1 15.5 oz can chickpeas
olive oil
1 t salt
1/2 t pepper
1/2 t paprika
Sausage
1 lb Italian ground sausage
1/2 t ground ginger
1/2 t coriander
1/2 t sesame seeds
Lemon Tahini Dressing
3 T tahini
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 T lemon juice
3 T olive oil
1/2 t onion powder
2 1/2 t parsley
1/4 t salt
1/4 t pepper
2-3 T water
Other
About 10 oz mixed greens
cucumber thinly sliced
Directions
Preheat oven to 400F.
On a baking sheet, spread out your halved grape tomatoes and chickpeas separately. Drizzle all with oil and sprinkle all with salt. Sprinkle the ground pepper over the tomatoes and the paprika to the chickpeas. Toss each separately and roast for 20 minutes.
Meanwhile in a medium skillet on medium heat cook the ground sausage, ginger, coriander and sesame seeds for about 12 minutes or until the sausage begins to brown a bit.
Then whisk all of the dressing ingredients together.
Serve by topping a bed of mixed greens with cucumber, grape tomatoes, chickpeas, sausage and the lemon tahini dressing.
Notes
Gluten-free: This recipe is gluten-free.
Dairy-free: This recipe is dairy-free.
Vegan/Vegetarian: This recipe can be made without sausage. If so I recommend using twice the amount of chickpeas for more protein and adding fennel, ground ginger and coriander to the dressing to make-up for lost flavor from the meat.
Grape Tomatoes: You can use cherry tomatoes, baby sweets or any other tiny tomato you prefer. I don’t recommend using a larger tomato.
Lemon Juice: You’ll need about 1 lemon.
Meal Prep Notes
Option 1: Make everything up to step 4. Refrigerate all parts separately until ready to serve. You can serve cold or heat up the sausage, tomatoes and chickpeas for a warm salad. Cooked ingredients will stay good in the fridge for 5-7 days.
Option 2: Make recipe to step 5 but leave the dressing to the side until you are ready to eat. Cooked ingredients will stay good in the fridge for 5-7 days.