5 Salads of Summer: Roast Pumpkin and Chickpea Salad with Tahini Dressing

Soft roasted pumpkin with chickpeas, crunchy pistachios and pickled onions, drizzled with a sweet tahini dressing.

Welcome to salad #2 of Eatnik's 5 Salads of Summer. This time featuring soft and sweet roasted pumpkin with tangy onions and a mellow tahini drizzle. I'm very much about salads that have some bulk to them. One that you can enjoy as the main rather than shoved off to one side of the plate. Some salady thoughts for you to think about:

1. Colour: a bright salad is a delicious salad. As a starting point, it's good to consider the colours going into your dish and aiming for as many different ones as possible. As a general rule, different colours equal different nutrients. Hence: "eat the rainbow".
2. Textures: no one likes a mouthful of mush (unless it's like potato and gravy or something). We want soft, chewy, crunchy, smooth textures in every mouthful. When thinking about textures you should consider how each component of your salad is prepared or cooked.
3. Flavour: or probably more accurately - the five taste modalities: sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami. You are looking for a combination of a few of these. Keeps the interest there. Turns your meal from a mouthful of greens to a flavour sensation.

Simply taking these three concepts into consideration allows you to put together something that will at least be somewhat enjoyable. Of course we want to think about what ingredients go together, but I think as a starting point, colour, texture and flavour are the three important parts to making a salad delicious.

Enjoy making this salad - and if you do, please tag me on Instagram @eatnikfood or using the hashtag #Eatnik5SOS.

Until next week!

Andrea 🤗

Roast Pumpkin and Chickpea Salad with Tahini Dressing

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Soft roasted pumpkin with chickpeas, crunchy pistachios and pickled onions drizzle with a sweet tahini dressing.

• Author: Andrea
• Prep Time: 10 mins
• Cook Time: 40 mins
• Total Time: 50 mins
• Yield: 4 serves 1x
• Category: Savoury
• Cuisine: Salad
• Diet: Vegetarian

Ingredients

Scale 1x2x3x

Salad

• 1kg Kent pumpkin
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tsp sea salt
• 60g (½ cup) pistachios
• 100g crumbly feta
• 200g chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• 100g baby spinach
• Pickled onions

Pickled red onions

• ½ cup water
• ¼ cup apple cider vinegar
• ½ tbsp castor sugar
• ½ tsp salt
• ½ red onion, thinly sliced

Dressing

• ⅓ cup tahini
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tsp salt
• 1-2 tablespoon maple syrup
• 3-6 tablespoon cool water

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Instructions

1. To make pickled onions, whisk together first four ingredients in a bowl. Pour over sliced red onions and leave for minimum one hour. You can place onions and liquid in a sterilised jar and into the fridge if you are pickling for more than an hour.
2. Preheat oven to 180°C. Line an oven tray with baking paper. Scoop out the seeds of your pumpkin. Leave skin on. Cut into one centimetre slices and place on prepared tray. Drizzle with olive oil and salt and toss to coat. Roast for 40 minutes until soft. Once cooked, remove and set aside to cool.
3. Meanwhile, place pistachios into a dry fry pan over a medium to high heat. Toast for five minutes until fragrant. Set aside to cool before roughly chopping.
4. To make the dressing: whisk all ingredients in a bowl. Add water slowly, whisking in between each addition until dressing reaches a pourable consistency.
5. To assemble salad: in a large bowl (or four individual plates), layer baby spinach with roasted and cooled pumpkin, chickpeas, chopped pistachios, crumbled feta and pickled onions. Drizzle with tahini dressing and serve immediately.

Notes

• Some swaps you could make:
  • Butternut pumpkin can replace Kent pumpkin and you can remove the skin if you'd prefer, although roasting makes pumpkin skin lovely and soft.
  • Substitute pistachios with chopped almonds, pine nuts or pumpkin seeds.
  • You could use goats cheese in place of feta, or some pan fried haloumi.
  • You do not need to pickle the onions if you don't have the time, however I do highly recommend this as it adds another flavour profile to the dish.
  • Honey can be subbed in for the maple syrup if you'd prefer.

Check out the first salad in the 5 Salads of Summer series: Roasted Root Vegetable Salad with Herby Yoghurt Dressing.