This Super Simple Pumpkin and Chickpea Salad can be a meal in its own right. The chickpeas, seeds and goats cheese give a boost of protein, the avocado and adding a salad dressing adds good fats. Together, they make the salad more filling.
Ingredients
- cut up a heap of pumpkin (any sort will do) into small cubes. (I had about 1/4 of small jap pumpkin)
- 1-2 tbsp raw honey
- Olive or coconut oil
- Salt & Pepper to season
- a heap of salad greens (choose what your kids like and add a few they don’t – exposure is the name of the game)
- 1 x 400g can chickpeas drained
- 1 avocado, diced
- as much goats cheese as you want (you could also use feta if you prefer)
- good sprinkling of pumpkin seeds
- good sprinkling of sunflower seeds
(I serve this salad up without dressing because 1 of our kids doesn’t like dressing, plus it also means leftovers stay fresh enough to have the next day for lunch).
Method
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees
- Lay your pumpkin cubes out on a baking tray
- Drizzle a good glug of oil over them, then the honey and sprinkle / grind on salt and pepper. Shake the tray around to coat the pumpkin. This is a great activity to get the kids to use their hands to mix it around
- Pop into the oven and bake for 20-30 mins until soft and a little browned/black
- Allow pumpkin to cool
- Cut up your salad greens and place in a big bowl
- Throw the pumpkin on top, then add chickpeas, avocado, goats cheese and the seeds
- Toss lightly – another good activity for the kids (with clean hands) to turn salad around
Serve salad. You can make a simple salad dressing by following the formula below:
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tbsp of acidity ingredient – any sort of vinegar, lemon, grapefruit, lime
- you can add 1-2 tsp of another flavour – dijon mustard, seeded mustard, sugar
- shake all the ingredients in a jar
Mine and Rilien’s (our 10yo son) favourite dressing with this salad is olive oil, with apple cider vinegar and 1 tsp seeded mustard.