Buffalo Chickpea Jar Salad

Buffalo chickpea jar salad, crunchy veggies + creamy yogurt blue cheese dressing + spicy buffalo chickpeas, yes! This jar salad just gave a serious high five to your taste buds!

Here's what happened, I saw eight thousand recipes for SuperBowl parties and seven thousand of them involved buffalo sauce.

Here's the thing… I LOVE buffalo wings and anything with buffalo sauce. I had a craving, I didn't have chicken wings, in the house but I did have 12 cans of chickpeas (don't ask…another amazon error I'm getting famous for not reading size or quantity when ordering on prime).

I had 12 cans of chickpeas, hot sauce (duh, ALWAYS have hot sauce), and all the crunchy veggies, and the makings for a healthy blue cheese dressing. 

Crunchy buffalo chickpea salad with creamy blue cheese dressing was born and now I will be eating it every week for the rest of my life. 

Let's get cooking!

INGREDIENTS TO MAKE CRUNCHY BUFFALO CHICKPEA JAR SALAD:

• Chickpeas – canned chickpeas work perfectly fine here
• Quinoa – a great way to use up leftover quinoa!
• Carrots, Celery, Radish, Scallion – all the crunchy veggies!
• Blue Cheese, Yogurt, Rice Vinegar – creamy blue cheese dressing? Yes, please!

TOOLS YOU'LL NEED FOR THIS RECIPE:

• A good knife
• Large cutting board
• Jars – I am obsessed with Weck Jars (the jars shown in these photos) but a wide mouth mason jar will also work. 

HOW TO LIGHTEN UP BLUE CHEESE DRESSING:

Homemade blue cheese dressing is quite honestly the easiest thing to whip up. Typically blue cheese dressing is made with mayonnaise, half and half, and sour cream, not the best compliment to a veggie extravaganza salad.

It's easy to lighten up blue cheese dressing:

• Start with a base of thick and creamy Greek yogurt 
• Add a generous pinch of salt and black pepper for flavor
• Thin out with a bit of unsweetened almond milk
• Amp up the flavor with rice wine vinegar

TIPS FOR MAKING PERFECT JAR SALADS EVERY TIME:

I was a jar salad skeptic for a long time. I just couldn't fathom that the ingredients didn't get soggy. I'm a convert. Jar salads are the bomb and I make them practically weekly. Follow these fool proof tips to make perfect jar salads every time:

1. Start with the jar that works for you, you can definitely use pint or quart size mason jars (I recommend wide mouth) but my favorite jars are Weck jars. They are the perfect uniform cylindrical shape.
2. Add salad dressing to the bottom of the jar.
3. Place harder, thick, non-absorbant vegetables on top of dressing (carrots, celery, cabbage, large cut cucumbers, etc.) and then layer softer vegetables, and greens on top. If I am using cheese, fruit, or nuts I add that on top of the greens.
4. When it’s time to eat you can either shake the jar and dig in or pour into a bowl and mix all together.

DIETARY MODIFICATIONS:

This recipe is vegetarian and gluten-free

• Vegan – use coconut oil to saute the chickpeas and make a vegan ranch dressing like this recipe from The Minimalist Baker or use this Primal Kitchen Vegan Ranch. 
• Paleo or Whole30 – Replace the chickpeas with buffalo cauliflower or buffalo chicken, use a non-dairy dressing alternative
• Ket0 – Replace the chickpeas with buffalo chicken, here is a great instant pot buffalo chicken recipe.

NUTRITION NERD CORNER – HOW TO EAT MORE VEGETABLES! 

Here's the dealio 91.7% of American's are not getting in the recommended amount of vegetables per day (according to the CDC), which according to federal guidelines is about 2-3 cups of vegetables or about 4 servings. 

My recommendation is 5+ servings a day and depending on your health goals I may increase that to 7-10 servings per day. 

A serving of vegetables is:

• 1/2 cup of cooked vegetables
• 1 cup of raw vegetables
• 2 cups of leafy greens

With every additional serving of vegetables, your risk of chronic disease is dramatically decreased. Eight of the 10 leading causes of death in this country can be directly related to the food that we eat, or in this case — not eat! 

Here are my 5 tips to get in 5+ servings of vegetables per day:

1. Every week prep some veggies so they are easy to grab and easy to eat! – Sometimes we just need to take our vegetables one step beyond the grocery store and closer to ready to cook. What does that mean? Take off the twisty tie on those greens, wash them up, and store in a cloth bag in the fridge. It will then take 5 minutes to get those greens on the table and into your belly!
2. Eat vegetables for breakfast. Yes. Do this. Add spinach or any greens to your smoothie, saute greens with your eggs, or eat veggie soup for breakfast *soup for breakfast for life!*
3. Make your vegetables visible – Put prepped and ready to eat veggies on the top shelf of your fridge or write a list every week of what veggies are in your fridge, begging to be devoured!
4. Mix up your salads! – I love this recipe because it is full of crunchy vegetables, you can or cannot add romaine lettuce, but sometimes I like having salads with a variety of veggies rather than just lettuce.
5. Become a roasting master – Every single week I roast a tray of veggies, I use them to snack on, add them to my breakfast, eat as a side dish for lunch, I just always have some kind of roasted veggies to eat every week. Mix up the type of veggies you roast and chomp away!

MORE JAR SALAD IDEAS AND VARIATIONS:

Thai Chickpea Jar Salad

Arugula and Strawberry Jar Salad

Spicy Black Bean and Butternut Squash Jar Salad

 

I hope you love this buffalo chickpea jar salad! If you make it be sure to tag me, @abrapappa on Instagram so I can see your masterpiece!