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Photo: Lakshmi: Amy Sussman/Getty Images. Recipe photo: KELSEY HANSEN.
If the January blues have you down—and looking for recipes—sometimes an injection of summer sunshine is exactly what you need. You might enjoy a big glass of vitamin C with something like ourRaspberry Lemonade, or fire up the grill pan for a veggie salad, like ourGrilled Summer Vegetable Gnocchi Salad. Or, if you’re Padma Lakshmi, you might opt for a simple chickpea salad to add some zip to your day.
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“This is a vegan recipe,” Lakshmi explains in her Instagram video. “This is a way to get all the protein you need for very little effort. I’m not sure why it’s so good with just boring ingredients.”
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To copy this dish, rinse and dry your chickpeas and add them to a big salad bowl. Then add in lots of chopped red bell pepper—chopped to be as small as the chickpeas—and chopped chives. (Lakshmi says you can swap in scallions if that’s what you have on hand.) Then dress the ingredients with the juice of 2 lemons and a generous pour of olive oil. You can determine your dressing ratio to taste. As Lakshmi says, what’s most important is that you get the richness of the oil and the brightness of the lemon juice.
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If you’re good to your salad, Lakshmi says, it will stay delicious in your fridge for up to a week. She recommends enjoying the leftovers cold or serving them over toast, like crostini. You could also pair this salad with an equally bright and citrusy soup, like ourCreamy Mushroom & Orzo Soup with Lemon & Parmesanfor a café menu-worthy combo.
For an added bonus, the lemon, olive oil, chickpeas, black pepper and spinach in this recipe make it adeliciously anti-inflammatory salad, as all of those ingredients have been tied to decreasing inflammation. Depending on what you have on hand, you could add other ingredients to your salad to make it a clean-out-the-fridge meal with lots of anti-inflammatory power—avocado and quinoa would both be delicious options.
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However you dress up your version of Padma’s recipe, it might just be the easiest meal you make all week.
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