Curry Chickpea Salad

I've always enjoyed a good chicken salad back during my meat eating days.  Since becoming vegan I've eaten plenty of egg-less salads using tofu in the place of the eggs, but never made a chicken-less one.  The recipes I've found typically use tempeh, but I am getting tired of constantly using soy in my meals.  Lately I've been scaling back on those ingredients and looking around for possible replacement.  Chickpeas seemed like a good start.

I always found it funny how many names there are for chickpeas.  There's chickpea, garbanzo bean, Indian pea, and Bengal gram.  Chickpeas are also considered one of the longest cultivated vegetables in the world.  I also found out, via handy dandy Wikipedia, that India produces the most chickpeas in the world by quite a large margin.  About six times as much as the country in second place: Pakistan.  And of course, chickpeas are an excellent source of protein.  Now on to the recipe!

Curry Chickpea Salad
- 16oz can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
- 2 celery ribs, minced
- 2 scallions, minced
- 1 half a large red pepper, seeded and minced
- 1/4c raisins
- 1/4c slivered almonds
- 2 tbsp fresh parsley, minced
- 1/4-1/2c Veganaise (or your fav vegan mayo)
- 1 heaping tbsp of curry powder
- juice of a half of lemon
- salt and ground pepper to taste

- romaine lettuce
- whole wheat tortillas or wheat bread

Mash the chickpeas in a large bowl.  Add the celery, scallions, pepper, raisins, almonds, and parsley and mix.  Add the mayo, curry powder, lemon juice, salt and pepper and mix until combined.  Cover and place in the fridge for 30 minutes or longer to allow flavors to meld.  That being said, if you eat it right away, it's still delicious!

When you're ready to eat, bust our your tortillas/bread, add some romaine lettuce, and top with curry chickpea salad.  Enjoy!