Easy Summer Picnic or Potluck Recipe:<br>Garbanzo Bean (Chickpea) Salad with Red Onion, Scallions, Cilantro, Parsley, and Feta Cheese (2024)

Last year I asked you for suggestions on how to use up the 125 scallions I had in the garden (thank you!), and this year—because I'm crazy like that—I planted even more onions. Some of them have already formed good-sized bulbs, and yesterday I made another batch of this salad using the red beauties you see above.

If you love cilantro but have never tasted homegrown, I urge you to do whatever you can to lay your hands on some. You know how everything harvested from the garden has so much more flavor than storebought? Well, it's the same for cilantro. I haven't grown any cilantro in a while, but I planted some seeds on a whim back in March and was rewarded with a bumper crop.

Cilantro is easy to grow from seed as long as you keep in mind one thing: despite often being associated with summer and salsa, it's actually a cool weather plant. I've even had volunteer seedlings come up in the snow.

I never would have thought to put cilantro in a salad like this, but it really works. Of course that's what a new cookbook is supposed to do—surprise and persuade and inspire you, which is exactly what this one has been doing for for me.

While I definitely recommend

And the Greek-Cypriot Salad (which sounds wonderful) calls for one '6-ounce jar (about 3½ cups)' of Greek olives, but a jar that size won't hold anywhere near 3½ cups of olives (and it would be way too many olives in the salad). If you carefully read through the recipes, you should be just fine.

So what's your favorite way to eat garbanzo beans?

Garbanzo Bean (Chickpea) Salad with Red Onion, Parsley, Cilantro, and Feta
Makes about 5 cups—Adapted from Falling Cloudberries

**Click here to print this recipe**

Lately I've been converting my recipes to measured amounts of ingredients rather than saying 2 onions or 3 cloves of garlic, because I've come to realize that there is often a huge size discrepancy among fruits and vegetables. Just look at lemons. Some are golf-ball sized, while others will barely fit in your hand. The 'juice of half a lemon' could be almost anything.

I don't consider myself obsessive when it comes to cooking, and I admit to rarely following a recipe exactly, but this has started driving me a little nuts because there are times when it can make a real difference. 'Six apples' might literally weigh anywhere from 2 pounds to 5 pounds. Measuring ingredients by weight is often the best way to go, but not everybody has a scale (I love my

That said, this is the kind of recipe where you don't need to be exact. Use my measurements as a starting point and adjust things to suit your taste. Next time I'll probably add extra red onion, and I'm thinking that using half red kidney beans and half garbanzo beans would be interesting.

The original recipe calls for lots more olive oil (like about a cup more) than my version does, so feel free to add extra, either while you're tossing everything together or drizzled on top just before serving.

Cooking the onions and garlic is the real trick here, as it makes them mellow and sweet, but allow them to cool before mixing them in or the feta cheese will melt. The optional olives add a flavorful, salty bite.

Tote this salad to picnics and potlucks, or serve it up along with a loaf of crusty bread and grilled chicken or steaks on those hot summer nights when nobody feels like cooking. You could also serve it on a bed of soft butter lettuce that you drizzled with olive oil and lemon juice.

As always, I urge you to seek out

1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus more if desired
3 cups chopped red onion
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh garlic
2 15-ounce cans garbanzo beans, drained & rinsed (or 3 cups cooked garbanzo beans)
3/4 cup (packed) chopped fresh cilantro
3/4 cup (packed) chopped fresh flat leaf Italian parsley
1½ cups chopped green onions (scallions), green parts only
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1 cup crumbled feta cheese
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
A handful of chopped kalamata or black oil-cured olives, optional

Heat 1/3 cup olive oil in a large frying pan and add the red onion, stirring to coat it with the oil. Cook the onion gently over medium or medium-low heat, stirring often, until the it is soft and starting to brown, about 10 to 12 minutes.

Stir in the garlic and cook until fragrant, about one minute; don't let the garlic brown. Remove from the heat and let cool.

In a large bowl, stir together the garbanzo beans, cilantro, parsley, green onions, and lemon juice. Add the cooled onion garlic mixture. (If you're impatient like I am, you can mix the onions and garlic into the beans while they're still warm, and the other ingredients will help cool them down.)

Mix in the crumbled feta cheese and olives (if using). Add salt and freshly ground pepper to taste (remember that the feta and olives will already be salty) and up to ½ cup more olive oil if desired.

This salad tastes best if made ahead and allowed to sit for a few hours before serving. Serve at room temperature, with a squeeze of lemon and a drizzle of olive oil if desired.

Other Farmgirl Fare recipes that call for garbanzo beans:

Still hungry? You'll find links to all of my sweet and savory Less Fuss, More Flavor recipes over in the Farmgirl Fare Recipe Index.

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