Chickpea Salad With Cucumber and Roast Lemon Salsa

By Yotam Ottolenghi

Updated July 28, 2026

  • David Malosh for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Hadas Smirnoff.
Media 1 of 1
Ready In
35 min
Rating
5(193)
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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.

Watch Yotam Ottolenghi make this dish in this video.

Featured in: These Summery Chickpeas Are Coming for Your Potato Salad

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Ingredients

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)

Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (6 servings)

49 grams carbs; 11 milligrams cholesterol; 561 calories; 15 grams monounsaturated fat; 12 grams polyunsaturated fat; 5 grams saturated fat; 35 grams fat; 14 grams fiber; 789 milligrams sodium; 16 grams protein; 11 grams sugar

Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.

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Preparation

  1. Step 1

    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.

  2. Step 2

    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.

  3. Step 3

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

  4. Step 4

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

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Ratings

5 out of 5
193 user ratings
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Comments

Lambeth

@AK all recipes have metric ! Click on the ruler to the right of the word “ingredients”.

KRH

Just as an aside to the author regarding the accompanying NYT article dated 5/13/26, oysters are not eaten in months without an R because they spawn between May and July; they are thinner and busy reproducing during that time. They were traditionally harvested only between September and March. I grew up within walking distance of an oyster house on the Rappahannock River.

AK

Would you include metric measurement for the recipes? The NYT is supposedly global, but continues to put imperial measurements in the recipes. I'm not going to spend my time converting just to be able to make them. Thanks in advance.

Jenn J

This was amazing. Salty, sour, umami with a touch of sweet. I made the chickpea dressing separately and added more mustard and a little bit of garlic powder and dried herbs to balance out the taste of mayo and then added it to the chickpeas and adjusted as necessary. It was a huge hit at the BBQ. I kept the two elements in separate containers until plating during transport.

Deborah T

Yummy! Anyone else have difficulty finely chopping the roasted lemons, or is it a dull knife issue? Also might add more jalapeño next go-round - my mistake was concern that it might be too much spice with "rings" of jalapeño (though did wonder if some might slice thin strips?), so I chopped the rings into smaller bits. I also chopped up the cucumber a bit more - 1 inch chunks just looked too big.

Lanierh

I halved the recipe because it’s just me. It is interesting and I’m looking forward to tasting again after 24 hours. Had to use dried dill and think fresh would be a vast improvement. This uses 3 of my favorites, lemon, cucumber, & chick peas so I’ll probably make again.

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