Chickpea & artichoke salad

October 6, 2025

   

Michael was away for work, and I wanted to stock the fridge with a couple of durable salads to rely on across the week. This one was so deep in my bookmarks that I needed the Internet Archive Wayback Machine to retrieve it! It's a natural and appealing mix of artichoke hearts and chickpeas, both browned in a pan, then dressed with lemon juice, olive oil and some green herbs, finished with almonds.

This fit the brief perfectly. I first ate it alongside beetroot and rhubarb salad and vegetarian sausage rolls, and in a few other configurations as the week went on.

Chickpea & artichoke salad

(slightly adapted from a recipe by Ricki Heller)

5 tablespoons olive oil, and/or oil from the jar of artichoke hearts

juice of 1 lemon

2 teaspoons dried or 2 tablespoons fresh basil

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1/4 cup fresh parsley, finely chopped

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup flaked almonds

1 x 400g can chickpeas, drained and rinsed

1 x 280g jar artichoke hearts, drained and quartered (reserve oil, if included)

2 cloves garlic, minced

In a medium-large bowl, whisk together 3 tablespoons of oil, lemon juice, basil, oregano, parsley and salt. Set aside.

Set a frypan over medium heat and gently toast the flaked almonds until they're starting to brown and they smell great. Remove them from the pan.

Pour 1 tablespoon of olive oil into the frypan. Add the chickpeas to the oil and cook them for about 10 minutes, until they start to brown. Transfer the chickpeas from the pan to the bowl.

Add 1 more tablespoon of olive oil to the frypan. Place the artichoke hearts in the pan and cook until they're well browned on that side, then turn them to brown them on another side. Add the garlic and stir it all together for a minute, then transfer the artichoke hearts and garlic to the bowl. Stir everything together well, then sprinkle over the flaked almonds.