Chickpea Caprese Salad

My Chickpea Caprese Salad with chickpeas, tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, red onion, and basil, is delicious, easy, satisfying, and packed with nutrition!

Friends, during this whole COVID-19 outbreak, there have been two types of fresh produce my husband and I have never been without: tomatoes and basil. Tomatoes because my husband LIVES off of them. Seriously. There are many foods he can live without, but fresh tomatoes is not one of them. We don’t run to the grocery store until we run out of tomatoes. And then, we must go IMMEDIATELY.

We have a plentiful supply of basil because shortly before this pandemic started, we finally decided to splurge on an Aerogarden and grow fresh herbs. I have wanted an herb garden for just about as long as I can remember. Sadly, my original gardening adventures proved very quickly that I suffer from a very, very black thumb. People usually don’t believe how consistently I destroy plants until I tell them how many succulents I’ve killed lately. Yep, I’m just that bad. If plants have Wanted Posters, I must be on a lot of them.

The good news is the miracle Aerogarden stopped my plant killing spree. The bad news is the basil went absolutely nuts. It grows so quickly, I can’t keep up with it. It’s so big, it killed my poor thyme and mint plants (goodbye, mojitos!). It’s a monster. When Anthony walked by it a few weeks ago, he remarked, “Wow, I didn’t know we had the plant from Little Shop of Horrors in our kitchen.”

Needless to say, I have been looking for creative ways to tame our basil monster, and thus the Chickpea Caprese Salad was born.

Guys, this is the perfect, easy, summertime lunch. Did I say it’s easy? There are only 5 components to this sucker: fresh mozzarella cheese, chickpeas for protein, tomatoes, basil, and red onion.

Not only is it a snap to put together, my Chickpea Caprese Salad is also a nutritional powerhouse.

Chickpeas serve as the protein base while providing nutrients such as folate and iron, to name just a couple. Tomatoes are rich in calcium, potassium, and phosphorus. Meanwhile, the mozzarella cheese dishes out calcium in spades in addition to protein.

And, of course, it’s delicious.

There is a reason Caprese salad has withstood the test of time and fads! The Italians really knew what they were doing here.

You can’t beat the way the acidity of the tomatoes and tang of the basil tempered by the mozzarella dances on the palate. My addition of red onions adds a little sharpness to the party, and the chickpeas compliment the mozzarella.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I am going to scrounge around to see if there is any salad left…