Chickpeas With Lemon Cumin Dressing & Orange Scented Yogurt on a Bed of Greens

I first saw this salad over at The Recipe Girl a while back, although after bookmarking it, I realized I had the cookbook it came from, Ellie Krieger’s The Food You Crave. It looked wonderful, but I got distracted and forgot about it.

The other night when I made my chicken divan, I was low on shredded roasted chicken (I was using the leftover meat from another dinner), and so I decided to serve this salad as a way to get additional protein into the meal (as opposed to a legume-less salad). John and the kids were kinda lukewarm on it, but I loved it. The yogurt dressing in particular is outstanding. I served it on baby greens, although my preference would be any locally grown green.

Chickpeas With Lemon Cumin Dressing & Orange Scented Yogurt on a Bed of Greens
Adapted from The Recipe Girl & Ellie Krieger

2 cups cooked and drained chickpeas
2 T chopped fresh cilantro
¼ cup thinly sliced red onion
2 T extra virgin olive oil
2 T fresh lemon juice
¼ t finely grated lemon zest
¾ t ground cumin
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
3 T plain lowfat yogurt
1 T fresh squeezed orange juice
¼ t finely grated orange zest
1 t honey
1 T chopped fresh mint
4 cups greens of choice
1 Tbs coarsely chopped fresh mint

In a medium bowl, combine chickpeas, cilantro and onion. In a small bowl, whisk together the oil, lemon juice and zest, cumin, salt and black pepper. Pour the dressing over the chickpea mixture and toss to coat evenly.

In another small bowl, stir together the yogurt, orange juice and zest, mint leaves and honey.

Serve the chickpea salad over a bed of greens. Top with yogurt sauce.