These easy chickpea salad sandwiches are delicious, healthy and incredibly easy to whip up! Made with smashed chickpeas and sweet bell peppers in a creamy avocado dressing, they're perfect for lunch or an easy weeknight dinner.
Cool salad sandwiches are where it's at when it comes to winning at lunch. I have a whole collection of delicious vegan lunch ideas, but sandwiches like this chickpea avocado salad are among my favorites. They're delicious, satisfying, and generally travel pretty well.
But these sandwiches aren't just for lunch! We love enjoying them for dinner in my house, especially on warm spring and summer days, and even more so if it's a busy weekday where I don't have much time for meal-prep (they can be ready in about 15 minutes).
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Ingredients You'll Need
- Avocado. Choose an avocado that's nice and ripe, so it'll be easy to mash.
- Lemon juice. Freshly squeezed lemon juice will give you the best flavor. Please don't use bottled!
- Salt & pepper.
- Chickpeas. We're using canned chickpeas to make life easy. Feel free to soak and cook yours from scratch if that's how you roll. You'll need about 2 cups.
- Red bell pepper.
- Carrot.
- Red onion.
- Fresh cilantro. Try subbing scallions if you're not a fan of cilantro.
- Sandwich bread. I love a good multigrain loaf, but anything works, including pita bread or tortillas. Just make sure to check the ingredients because many varieties of commercial sliced bread are not vegan.
- Toppings. Use your favorite sandwich toppers! I'm using lettuce, tomato and onion, but pickles, olives, or greens like spinach and arugula are also great options.
How They're Made
The following is a detailed photo tutorial on how to make this dish. Scroll all the way down if you'd like to skip right to the recipe!
Start by placing your avocado into a large bowl. Mash it up well with a fork or potato masher. (I prefer a fork for this.) Add lemon juice and salt, then mash everything up some more.
Now add the chickpeas and mash them lightly. (I prefer a potato masher for this part, but a fork is fine.) Aim to break every chickpea, but keep some texture in the mixture.
Stir in diced bell pepper, carrot, red onion, and chopped fresh cilantro. Give the filling a taste and make adjustments to suit your preference. This could mean adding more salt or lemon juice. Add some black pepper as well.
Stuff the filling between bread slices, along with your favorite sandwich toppings. Your chickpea avocado sandwiches are ready to enjoy!
Variations
Try switching up the flavor of your chickpea sandwich filling with one of these options.
- Avocado lime chickpea sandwiches. Simply swap out the lemon juice with lime juice.
- Smoky chickpea salad sandwiches. Add ½ teaspoon to 1 teaspoon of liquid smoke to the filling. I know, this sounds weird! But if you enjoy smoky flavors, you'll love it.
- Curry chickpea sandwiches. Add a teaspoon of curry powder to the filling.
- Chickpea avocado salad. Serve the sandwich filling over greens instead of on bread.
Leftovers & Storage
Leftover chickpea avocado filling will keep in an airtight container in the fridge for about 3 days.
Avocado tends to turn brown over time. It's still fine to eat, even if it doesn't look super appetizing. To avoid browning, use a ripe but not overripe avocado, and arrange a layer of plastic wrap directly in contact with and covering the filling before sealing it up in an airtight container.
More Cold Vegan Salad Sandwiches
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Smashed Chickpea Avocado Salad Sandwiches
These easy chickpea salad sandwiches are delicious, healthy and incredibly easy to whip up! Made with smashed chickpeas and sweet bell peppers in a creamy avocado dressing, they're perfect for lunch or an easy weeknight dinner.
Ingredients
- 1 ripe avocado
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice, plus more to taste
- ½ teaspoon salt, plus more to taste
- 1 (15 ounce) can chickpeas drained and rinsed
- ½ medium red bell pepper, diced
- 1 medium carrot, diced
- ¼ cup red onion, diced
- 2 tablespoons fresh cilantro, finely chopped
- Black pepper, to taste
- 6 slices sandwich bread
Optional Toppings
- Lettuce
- Sliced tomato
- Sliced onion
Instructions
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Place the avocado into a large mixing bowl and mash it with a fork or potato masher until creamy. Stir in the lemon juice and salt.
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Add the chickpeas and lightly mash them, keeping a bit of texture.
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Stir in the pepper, carrot, red onion and cilantro.
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Taste-test the mixture and season it with additional salt and/or lemon juice if desired, and black pepper to taste.
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Divide the mixture among three sandwiches, topping each with lettuce, tomato, onion, or toppings of choice.
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Serve.
Recipe Notes
This recipe makes 3 good-sized sandwiches, but you could also get 4 smaller sandwiches out of the filling.
Delish! I did cut down the liquid smoke to 1/4 tsp to get a very subtle smokiness. Loved how it turned out and love that it uses avocado instead of mayo.
Thank you! I was pretty excited to discover that avocado worked as a mayo substitute :) So glad you enjoyed this. Thank you so much for sharing your results!!
I've just started a new job as school assistant, and as I'll have to bring my own lunch (of course), your back-to-school newsletter today was oh so timely! This caught my eye immediately in the list, and I'm looking forward to throwing a batch of chickpeas together for this week's lunches!
Oh perfect!! I just decided to start sending out those weekly newsletters - I'm so glad it was helpful! Thanks Stefani - I hope you enjoy this!
P.S. I just noticed that in the ingredient list the cilantro seems to have disappeared. It is in the description, though.
I just made this for lunch - followed recipe exactly. It was SO good. Actually, for me it was perfect. I have several chickpea sandwich recipes that are good, but this I know will become a staple. I’ll definitely try out your other recipes now.
Thank you!!!
Great taste and perfect consistency!