Balela salad is an all-time favorite nutrition-packed power salad. It’s fresh, satisfying, and totally festive. This is not your basic chickpea salad recipe!
Let’s start with a simple definition. In Arabic, the word “balela” means “cooked chickpeas.” Balela salad is an ancient Middle Eastern chickpea salad. It is simple, wholesome, bright, and flavor-packed. A winner on all fronts!
There are many variations of balela salad, but this recipe is closer to what you’d find in the restaurants and food joints of Alexandria, Egypt.
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Balela Salad My Way
The gist: cooked chickpeas, chopped veggies, copious amounts of fresh herbs, and Mediterranean favorites like olives and sun-dried tomatoes. A zesty salad dressing with garlic and sumac brings everything together.
Tip: to allow the flavors to meld, make the balela salad ahead of time, at least a half hour before serving!
Turn Your Balela Salad Into a Meal!
Clearly this beautiful and festive salad can be served as part of a special dinner. But with nourishing and satisfying chickpeas, being the star ingredient in balela salad, it can really stand alone as a meal. You can also serve it in warm pita pockets with a drizzle of tahini, or add it to an impressive vegetarian mezze platter with baba ganoush and roasted red pepper hummus.
Have You Heard About the Half Cup Habit?
I get excited when I see balela salad at my local deli. Good on them! It’s one brilliant way to pack lean protein and plant-based nutrition into your diet! And if there were a list of textbook Mediterranean diet recipes, Balela salad would make the top!
As you know, one of the powerful secrets of the Mediterranean diet is in nutrition-filled pulses, like dry chickpeas, lentils, peas, and beans. Pulses pack a lot of protein, and they are rich in complex carbohydrates, fiber and B vitamins!
If you don’t already eat a good portion of pulses, a simple goal would be to add to your diet just ½ cup of pulses three times per week (a total of 1 ½ cups of pulses per week, which is what USDA recommends). This is what USA Pulses and Pulse Canada call the Half-Cup Habit! Check it out here. And, I’ve included some more of my favorite recipes below!
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Browse all Mediterranean recipes.
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Balela Salad
Ingredients
For the Salad
- 3 1/2 cups cooked chickpeas (or 2 15-ounce cans chickpeas), drained and rinsed
- 1/2 green bell pepper, chopped
- 1 jalapeno, finely chopped (optional)
- 2 1/2 cups grape or cherry tomatoes, halved if you’d like (or you can leave them whole)
- 1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes
- 3-5 green onions, chopped (both white and green parts)
- 1/3 cup pitted Kalamata olives
- 1/4 cup pitted green olives
- 1/2 cup chopped parsley leaves
- 1/2 cup chopped mint or basil leaves
For the Dressing
- 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- 1 teaspoon sumac
- 1/2 teaspoon Aleppo pepper
- 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper (optional)
- Kosher salt
- Black pepper
Instructions
- Mix the salad. In a large bowl, mix the chickpeas, bell pepper, jalapeno (if using), tomatoes, green onion, sun-dried tomatoes, olives, and herbs.
- Make the dressing. In a separate bowl or jar, add the oil, vinegar, lemon juice, garlic, sumac, Aleppo pepper, and red pepper (if using). Season with salt and pepper to taste and whisk to combine.
- Dress. Drizzle the dressing over the salad and mix gently to coat. Ideally, leave aside for 30 minutes before serving, or cover and refrigerate until you’re ready to serve.
- Serve. When ready to serve, give the salad a quick mix and taste to adjust seasoning if at all needed. Enjoy!
Video
Notes
- Turn your babela into a meal! This wholesome, nutrition-packed salad can easily be turned into a meal. Serve it in warm pita pockets with a drizzle of tahini. Or add it to an impressive vegetarian mezze platter with baba ganoush and roasted red pepper hummus.
- Recommended for this recipe: Early Harvest Greek extra virgin olive oil (from organically grown and processed Koroneiki olives). And from our all-natural spice collection: Sumac and Aleppo Pepper.
- Visit our shop to browse quality Mediterranean ingredients including olive oils, honey, jams, and spices.
Nutrition
*This post has recently been updated with new information for readers’ benefit.
That salad is amazing. A feast for all your senses. The dressing alone knocks your socks off. Thank you for “making me” try Sumac and Aleppo pepper. I never would have otherwise., which would have been a shame.
Happy to help :). So glad you enjoyed the salad, Alex!
This salad is one of my favorites. The many ingredients all complement each other., and the dressing is perfect. Believe me, it’s worth chopping all the veggies (I’ve made this now 3 times).. The explosion of flavors made my tummy smile:)
Yay! Thanks, Ellen!
I would like to take this salad to a potluck. Can it be made ahead and served the next day? Thank you!
Yes, Velma! This salad will hold up nicely for the next day. And if you like, you can leave the dressing out and add it an hour or so before you need to serve it.
I’ve never used Aleppo before. Delish!! I will make this often!
Awesome, Vida! Aleppo makes a big difference, doesn’t it?
Would adding some tuna or chicken take away from the delightfulness that is this salad?
Macc, you can absolutely add chicken or even a little tuna, not a problem. This lemon chicken is easy and will go well with balela: https://www.themediterraneandish.com/easy-lemon-chicken/
Excellent!! Was thinking of incorporating tuna or shredded chicken into the salad, for a meal!
Delicious! Wouldn’t change anything. ?
So glad! Thanks so much, Karen!
I love this recipe so much! I’ve probab made it 20 times; it’s one of my favorite work lunches. I make a batch & then portion it into 4 lunches that I can easily just grab & go. Sometimes I sub diced pepperoncini for the jalapeño & it just as good.
Cynthia, thank you! Sounds like a winning lunch. I’m going to try your idea of portioning some off to use throughout the week!
Loved this!
I made a small change, instead of green bell pepper which I really don’t like i used some celery i had on hand, and also used two cloves garlic in the dressing because i love garlic :))
Had some stuffed into a baked red bell pepper with a side of pita chips, and another day had some ontop of baby spinach and arugula for a tasty filling salad. Will definitely make again!
Wonderful! Thank you for sharing your ideas!
A quick question from a confused European – I’ve been trying a bunch of your recipes and they are all excellent, but one thing I have issues with is converting measurements sometimes. In case of fresh herbs especially – when you say that the recipe requires “1/2 cup freshly chopped parsley leaves”, how many grams (or ounces, or any other unit of weight) is that? There are multiple recipe converters online, but they give me wildly different results…
Anyway, thanks a lot for all the delicious recipes – definitely am a fan after trying some of them!
Thank you for sharing, Chris. 1/2 packed parsley would be approximately 30 grams. Now, luckily, most of our recipes are quite forgiving,and if you add a little less or more of a fresh ingredient, it should still be okay. But I hear your concern, and we hope to provide a better measurement at some point, we just have not found the right tool yet.
A delicious combination of fresh flavours! A keeper!
Yay! Glad you enjoyed it!
Thanks for a great recipe!!
In the pictures it looks like you added dill too…
Is it part of the recipe??
Thank you, Adi! Dill can be added as well…I do add it sometimes, but not always. A handful, like about 1/2 cup chopped dill would be fine to add.
This recipe was AMAZING. The salad was so flavorful, healthy, and filling. And, it was so easy to prepare, even though usually I’m a disaster in the kitchen. I will definitely try a few other recipes from this site!!! Thank you for the delicious dinner, and thank you for boosting my super low confidence in the kitchen!!!
Michelle, I am so glad you tried Balela. And I have a feeling, you are so much better in the kitchen than you’re giving yourself credit for. I do hope you try more recipes. And do come back and tell me 🙂
Just made this salad but didn’t have chickpeas instead I had boiled fava beans. It was delicious! Thanks for sharing 🙂
Maece, that’s a great variation! Glad you enjoyed it!
I tweaked it to my tastes a bit ( no sun dried tomatoes and I only had Ancho Chili Powder available) and added chopped cucumber. This is a fantastic dish! So flavorful. Thank you!
So glad you enjoyed it, Heather! Thanks for sharing!
Should I drain/rinse canned chickpeas before using?
Hi, Cori! Yes, drain and rinse chickpeas 🙂
I am a huge bean fan, I love to make salads with them, and I’ve never heard of this one, so I’m super excited to try it! Love the colors 🙂