Garbanzo Salad with Creamy Dill Dressing is a delicious and filling main or side dish. This tasty salad features crunchy veggies like cucumber, bell pepper, and carrots with wheat berries, creamy chickpeas and a rich and creamy dill dressing. It’s make-ahead ready and holds well in the fridge, making it an ideal salad for meal prep. Many readers have used different grains with success. See comments below! This recipe is vegetarian, vegan, and easily gluten-free.
Highlights of Garbanzo Summer Salad
Do you call these little peas garbanzo beans or chickpeas? Before I started blogging, I only knew them as garbanzo beans. Funny name. Now, I mostly refer to them as chickpeas. Garbanzo beans and chickpeas are the same legumes, so you can use them interchangeably.
This Garbanzo Salad is a go-to summer salad because it can hang out in the fridge for days. It’s make ahead ready making a tasty work-week lunch or at the ready side dinner salad. It has loads of texture with delightfully chewy wheat berries, crunchy carrots, bell peppers, cucumber, and creamy chickpeas. The lemon and garlic dill dressing is SO dreamy!
This Recipe Is
- Crunchy
- Herby
- Make Ahead Ready
- Vegan and Vegetarian, easily Gluten Free
If you love hearty Dinner Salads and Summer Salads, you’ll enjoy this recipe!
About the Key Ingredients
For the Salad
- Wheat Berries: They have a mild nutty flavor, chewy texture and are whole grain. Look for hard red or hard white wheat berries (not pearled wheat berries) in the bulk bins for best value making sure to buy organic if possible. The pearled variety cooks faster, but the outer bran has been removed to achieve added convenience. You can sub short grain brown rice for a delicious gluten-free option.
- Cooked Garbanzo (Chickpeas) Beans: Use canned or home-cooked chickpeas; the chickpeas should be soft yet still have some tooth.
- Mayonnaise: Use your favorite high-quality mayo here. I like Vegenaise. This dressing is pretty light, so if you prefer a little more robust creaminess, add an additional 2-3 more tablespoons of mayonnaise and a splash more lemon juice to the dressing.
- Fresh Dill: The tastiest part of the salad dressing! Chop fine so you don’t get a big chunk all in one bite. You’ll need two teaspoons. If you’d like to substitute dried dill, use 3/4 teaspoon.
Unsoaked wheat berries take a little under an hour to cook. If soaked 8-12 hours, they’ll take about 35-45 minutes to cook. Depending on how chewy you like your wheat berries, you can cook them longer for a softer tooth.
About Wheat Berries
What berries are whole wheat kernels without the husk. There’re multiple varieties available, including hard and soft. Milled wheat berries produce whole wheat flour.
Look for hard winter red wheat berries or hard winter white wheat berries for this recipe. They both have about the same flavor and texture. Hard red wheat berries take just a little longer to cook. Once cooked, they have a very chewy texture with a mild, nutty flavor.
They take close to an hour to cook (unsoaked), but because of this, you can adjust to desired chewiness. Start checking the wheat berries at about 40 minutes. If they’re too tough, continue cooking for another 10-15 minutes.
Cooked wheat berries are delicious in salads like Roasted Beet and Wheat Berry Orange Salad and stews like Smoky White Bean and Kale Wheat Berry Stew.
Traci’s Tips
- Gluten-Free? since wheat berries are not gluten-free, you can easily substitute cooked short or long-grain brown rice or quinoa for the wheat berries in this garbanzo bean salad with delicious results.
- For a Creamier Salad: the salad dressing is light but flavorful. If you prefer a bit more creaminess, add an additional 2-3 tablespoons of mayo to the creamy dill dressing.
Crunchy Garbanzo Summer Salad with Creamy Dill Dressing
Ingredients
For the Salad:
- 1/2 cup (135 grams) Wheat Berries* (see note) soaked 8-12 hours in room temperature water. Hard white or red.
- 3 cups (750 grams) Water
- Big Pinch of Fine Sea Salt
- 1 1/2 cups (252 grams) Cooked Garbanzo (Chickpea) Beans or 1, 15 oz can, drained and rinsed
- 1 1/2 cups (175 grams) Red Bell Pepper about 1 large pepper, diced small
- 1 1/2 cups (205 grams) Green Bell Pepper about 1 large pepper, diced small
- 1 1/2 cups (190 grams) Cucumber skin on, about 1 medium diced small
- 2 1/2 cups (300 grams) Carrots peeled, diced small, about 7 small carrots
- 1/4 cups (30 grams) Purple Onion finely diced
- 1/4 cups (10 grams) Curly Parsley chopped
- 2 tablespoons Chives chopped
For the Dressing (see note**):
- 1/3 cup (75 grams) High Quality Mayonnaise I like Veganease
- 1 tablespoons Apple Cider Vinegar
- 2 teaspoons Lemon Juice
- 2 teaspoons Garlic minced, about 2 medium cloves
- 2 teaspoons Fresh Dill chopped
- 1/2 teaspoons Fine Sea Salt
- Fresh Ground Pepper to taste
Instructions
For the Salad:
- In a small sauce-pot or Dutch oven with a tight-fitting lid, add the water, salt and bring to a boil. Rinse the wheat berries in a colander then drop them in the boiling water. Cover the wheat berries with a lid, turn the heat to med-low and simmer for up to 55 minutes. Start checking the wheat berries at about 40 minutes to see if they are as soft as you prefer. If not, keep them cooking another 10-15 minutes. The wheat berries are done when tender, but still have a good chew. Red wheat berries take about 10 minutes longer to cook.Once done, rinse under cool running water and drain throughly.
- Meanwhile, chop all the veggies and herbs and transfer them to a large mixing bowl. Once the wheat berries are done, transfer them to the bowl with the veggies.
For the Dressing:
- Place the mayo, vinegar, lemon juice, garlic, dill, salt and a few grinds of pepper in a small mixing bowl and whisk. Set aside.
To Assemble:
- To the mixing bowl with the veggies and wheat berries, add the parsley and chives. Pour dressing over the salad and stir ingredients until evenly distributed. Adjust seasoning to taste with salt and fresh ground black pepper and more herbs if desired. Cover and chill for at least an hour before serving so the flavors have time to marry. Garnish with lemon wedges, dill and parsley. Refrigerate for up to three days.
This recipe is so delicious. It is the perfect summer salad when I have access to fresh herbs. This recipe is also very flexible which is great. I made an extremely lazy version of this tonight because I don’t have any cucumbers or peppers. I used Kamut and doubled the chickpeas with the dressing as written. Still delicious! A summer keeper.
This is delicious! I, like others, substituted quinoa for the wheat berries. I’m a big fan of garbanzos and this is a perfect salad for them. The dill salad dressing was outstanding. I will use over and over again. Made this afternoon and I have already raved about it to others.
Hi Maria! Thank you for your note and giving the salad a go! I love quinoa in this recipe. So happy you’re enjoying it and, thank you for sharing!
Made this for work, (night shift ER RN) and all my nurses LOVED IT!!!,,,I substituted quinoa for the wheat berries and it turned out great!
LOVE how it last in the frige for a week-but was gone before that!
I am not a vegetarian, but love healthy salads and yours are GREAT!!!
Hiii Autumn! Thank you for sending a smile and giving the salad a go! SO happy to hear you and your night shift colleagues enjoyed it! What a treat! Quiona is sooo fabulous in this salad…. here’s to another round with a little extra tucked away in the fridge for you!
Really love this recipe. I upped all the herbs in the dressing and added some feta. :) love how fresh and customizable this recipe is.
Hooray! Thank you for coming back, leaving a note and sharing your tips! SO happy to hear!
Traci, this salad is wonderful! We seem to have omitted spring here in Ontario and gone from winter to summer. With the humidex it was 39 Celsius today, so this salad was just what we needed. Because we are not going to the grocery store as often, I used farro instead of what berries and that worked out very well for us. Served with homemade crispy pitas and Italia sausage for the meat eaters and t was great. I’m so glad there’s some left for lunches. Thanks for another great recipe!
This has been my go-to salad all summer. I double the recipe and use regular may for one batch and vegan mayo for my husband and we have salads for lunch for days (I’d say a week but honestly, the salad is so tasty that we gobble it up). Great way to eat a lot of veggies and be filled up!
Hiii Laurel! Thank you for coming back, leaving a note and your five star rating! No doubt this is such a hearty salad that is completely tasty and filling! SO happy to hear you and hubs are enjoying the recipe (love that versatility too!!
This was amazing!! I used what I had on hand: cucumber, carrot, bag of little red, orange and yellow peppers, garbanzos and sprouted brown rice. I was taking it to an outdoor potluck so I didn’t want to chance the mayo sitting out in 90 degree temperatures, so I substituted 1/4 cup of high quality olive oil for the mayo and it was the first salad bowl that was empty! YUM! Thanks so much for the great recipe!
Hello Ellen! Thank you for coming back and leaving a note! Isn’t it such a versatile salad? Thank you for your tip on the mayo sub! So happy to hear it was a hit!
My husband astounded me recently by suggesting we go meatless one day a week. I’m all for it but after agreeing I realized that meatless main meals require more thought and planning than my standard repertoire. Fortunately both quinoa and chickpeas were already favorites around here so this good looking salad fits right in. BTW cooking quinoa and dried chickpeas in an Instant Pot is a breeze. I always keep ready to use bowls in the fridge.
Hi Mandy! Thank you for coming back and leaving a note… so happy to hear you’re enjoying the recipe. Quinoa is such a delicious sub in this salad. I love it too! How exciting that your hubs approached you regarding meatless one day a week! Hooray!
Looks amazing. We are not a dill family. Has anyone tried a different dressing?
Hi Tracey! The dill is a major flavor contributor to this salad… but you can leave it out if you like, use the dressing as is and if you want add any other herbs you prefer. Parsley, thyme… I hope this helps!
I have made this salad two weeks in a row now for my work lunches (it makes about 4 meal salads). So delicious. I put each item in my Cuisinart and gave it a course chop ( I am a little lazy, but it made everything bite sized quickly!). I also added dried cranberries and pepitas the first week. Second week, I added cottage cheese. Colorful, FLAVORFUL, healthy, and delicious. A great go-to summer lunch at work! It makes me feel like I am sticking to my healthy eating goals just by looking at it!
Love reading your note, Kari! Aren’t the colors so vibrant? Way to go you on meal prepping and making quick work of this salad! Hooray!
I love this salad!!! Delicious! For those of you who asked, yes, this is very much like coctco’s Ancient Grain Salad. Thanks for sharing the recipe
Thank you so much, Joann! I’ve never had Costco’s Ancient Grain Salad.. (or seen it), but thank you for sharing that it is very much like it!
When the recipe says to cook the chickpeas…if they come out of a can are they already cooked?
Hi Pamela! Chickpeas from a can are already cooked, yes. But you can cook your own from dried, or use chickpeas from a can. Either way, you need 1 1/2 cups. I hope this helps!
Thank you. I thought that was the case but wanted to confirm. Can’t wait to have this for dinner tonight! :)
This is the perfect summer salad to keep in rotation. I love chickpeas in anything and that dressing sounds like the perfect balance for everything. This will be coming with me to a Labor Day party. I definitely enjoyed the eclipse-the glasses really made the viewing awesome. I’m with you…I’ll hold on to summer until the last sweet day! Pumpkins can wait!
Oh my, yes, the pumpkins! The fields are full of em’ here and I’m thinking, already? But it’s getting close to time! I hope you enjoy the recipe, Jean!
used wild rice instead of brown rice loved it it was a huge hit at church luncheon they went ape over it
hehe.. Hooray! Thank you for sharing, Richard. Wild rice sounds just fabulous!
This looks close to the Ancient Grains salad that Costco has in the deli. I was looking for a copycat recipe. Anyone familiar with that salad?
I was thinking the same thing!
Made this as a side to Italian sausage on grlll. The only things I did different was use quinoa and I used cannellini beans. (Hubby hates garbanzos! ). It was a hit!! My five year old couldn’t get enough.
Hi Colleen! Oooh, I love the subs and hooray for your 5 YO! Thank you for sharing! :D
I made this today to go with pulled pork. This is amazing. We loved everything about it. I used Quinoa because that is what I had and it was so delicious!!!! Thank you for a great salad!! Will make again and again.
Hi Pepper! Ummmmm, yummm I love artichokes and chick peas too! :D