Chickpea "tuna" salad sandwich
15 min · 19 g protein · 399 cals / serving
The lunch that tops vegan favourite lists year after year: chickpeas roughly mashed with hummus and plant yogurt, crunchy celery, pickles, capers and dill, with crumbled nori for a hint of the sea. It eats just like a classic tuna salad sandwich, piled thick on whole-wheat bread with crisp lettuce and tomato.
Ingredients
Chickpea salad
- 2 cans (15 oz each) chickpeas, drained, rinsed and patted dry
- 1/4 cup hummus, plain
- 1/4 cup soy yogurt, plain unsweetened soy yogurt
- 2 tsp Dijon mustard
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 2 stalks celery, finely diced
- 1/4 small red onion, finely diced
- 1 large reduced sodium dill pickles, finely diced, plus 1 tbsp of the brine
- 1 tbsp capers, chopped
- 2 tbsp fresh dill, chopped
- 1/2 sheet nori, crumbled very fine
- a pinch salt
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
Sandwiches
- 8 slices whole wheat bread, a vegan loaf (many contain honey or milk; check the label), toasted if you like
- 4 leaves romaine lettuce
- 1 large tomato, sliced
Steps
- Put the chickpeas in a mixing bowl and mash them with a potato masher or a fork until most are broken into rough flakes but a few are still half whole. That mix of textures is what makes it read as tuna.
- Stir in the hummus, soy yogurt, mustard, lemon juice, celery, red onion, pickles and their brine, capers, dill, nori, salt and pepper until evenly combined. Taste and add more lemon, salt or pickle brine as you like.
- Lay out the bread, top four slices with lettuce and tomato, then pile on the chickpea salad, about 3/4 cup per sandwich. Close with the remaining slices, press down lightly and cut in half.
Good to know
Can I make the filling ahead?
Yes, it keeps 4 days in a covered container in the fridge, and the flavors get better on day two. Build the sandwiches when you eat them so the bread does not go soggy.
Is the nori necessary?
It is what gives the gentle seaside flavor of tuna, so it is worth having. A teaspoon of dulse or kelp flakes does the same. Without either, the salad still tastes great, just more like a classic chickpea salad.
Other ways to eat it?
Spoon it into lettuce cups, stuff it into a whole-wheat pita, or melt it on toast with sliced tomato under the grill.
Per
- Calories
- 125
- Protein
- (21%)
- 6 g
- Fat
- (22%)
- 3 g
- Carbohydrates
- (57%)
- 19 g
- of which sugar
- 4 g
- Fiber
- 4 g
- Sodium
- 257 mg
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Computed from the ingredients with our published formula, not yet kitchen-tested. How
As written, 1596 kcal goes into the pot and 1310 g of ingredients comes out as about 1275 g of food: 125 kcal per 100 g. Cooking moves water and energy density is the score's biggest lever, so the dish is scored as cooked, not as an average of its parts. Every ingredient links to its food page, with the same data and score. The label's percentages are each macronutrient's share of the calories. The full formula.