Chickpea Salad With Cucumber and Roast Lemon Salsa

Chickpea Salad With Cucumber and Roast Lemon Salsa

Memorial Day weekend is the unofficial start of outdoor eating season, and a potato salad must be on the menu. This one has no potato. Chickpeas stand in instead — creamy and substantial, dressed in Greek yogurt, mayonnaise and whole-grain mustard. This salad delivers everything you want from a classic cookout side: the richness, the bulk, the familiar comfort of something cold and scoopable. What tips it somewhere new is the cucumber salsa spooned over the top: lemons, roasted until tender and just charred at the edges, intensify into something jammy and sour, then tossed with cucumber, sweet dill pickles, jalapeño and a good amount of fresh dill. The result is very good alongside whatever else is on the grill.

Yield: 6 servings

1 lemon, thinly sliced (about 12 slices) 

6 tablespoons olive oil, divided 

Fine sea salt and black pepper

3 mini or Persian cucumbers, cut into 1-inch irregular chunks (about 8 ounces total)

¾ cup diced sweet gherkins or sweet dill pickles (about 4 ounces), plus ¼ cup pickle brine

3 spring onions or scallions, thinly sliced

½ cup (packed) roughly chopped fresh dill

1 medium jalapeño, thinly sliced

1 teaspoon maple syrup 

¼ teaspoon celery salt (or fine sea salt) 

2 (20-ounce) jars chickpeas or 2 (15-ounce) cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed

½ cup (5 ounces) plain Greek yogurt 

½ cup mayonnaise 

1½ tablespoons whole-grain mustard 

¼ teaspoon nigella seeds, to serve (optional)

Heat the oven to 425 degrees. Toss the lemon slices with 1 tablespoon of oil and ⅛ teaspoon of salt on a small parchment-lined baking sheet, and arrange in a single layer. Roast for about 12 minutes, until the lemon is tender and just starting to char around the edges. Set aside to cool briefly, then finely chop.

In a medium bowl, combine the cucumbers, gherkins, pickle brine, spring onion, dill and jalapeño. Stir in the chopped roasted lemon, along with the remaining 5 tablespoons oil, the maple syrup, celery salt and a few grinds of pepper.

In a separate bowl, mix together the chickpeas, yogurt, mayonnaise and mustard, along with ¼ teaspoon of salt and a few grinds of pepper. 

To serve, transfer the chickpeas to a serving platter, spoon over the cucumber salsa and sprinkle with the nigella seeds, if using.