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With fresh seasonal veggies and a creamy tahini sauce, this Israeli-inspired tahini salad is packed with a variety of flavors and textures – there won’t be leftovers! This is a community-favorite recipe our readers always love!
save this recipe!Every recipe on the blog so far has been my own creation. But then Rudolph, one of our readers, emailed me one day. The subject line was, “It’s yours to use or publish as you wish”, and the email was simply this recipe – Rudy’s Sunshine Salad.
So I made it. And it was delicious. And the combination of ingredients and flavors that I never would have thought of on my own inspired me to discover even more reader recipes.
And so this week I’m so excited to be featuring YOUR recipes! I put a call out for recipes and you all delivered. But first, we’re kicking it off with the recipe that started it all. Rudy’s Sunshine Salad!
Reader rating
“This salad is my new obsession. Love that it isn’t a ton of ingredients and is so bright, zesty, crunchy and fresh.” —Megara
Here’s What You’ll Need
This is just an overview – jump to the recipe card for full measurements and printable instructions.
- Limes: We’ll be using both the zest (which adds lime flavor) and the juice (which adds acidity) to bring some power to the salad dressing.
- Tahini: Tahini, or sesame seed paste, can have an overpowering flavor on its own (go ahead and lick the spoon, you’ll see), but it makes a creamy base for the salad dressing and is delightful when mixed up with everything!
- Chickpeas: Use canned chickpeas for simplicity, or cook your chickpeas from dried to save money.
- Cucumbers: You can use either seeded or non-seeded (English) cucumbers here.
- Celery: The bright flavors of the celery balance out the tahini dressing and add a hefty dose of crunch!
- Cilantro: And finally, Rudy’s favorite part of the salad (and mine too!) – the fresh cilantro.
DIY Tahini
You can find tahini in most grocery stores, but we also have a guide to making tahini if you’re feeling adventurous!
Serve it with these cottage cheese stuffed tomatoes!
Rudy’s Sunshine Salad (Israeli-Inspired Tahini Salad)
Ingredients
- 2 limes
- 1 tsp salt
- ¼ cup tahini, 60 g
- ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil, 60 mL
- 1 14-oz can chickpeas, drained, 400 g
- 2 medium cucumbers, cut into bite-sized pieces
- 5 stalks celery, diced
- ½ cup cilantro, finely chopped
Instructions
- Dressing: Grate the zest from 1 lime and add it to a medium bowl, along with the juice from both limes. Whisk in salt, tahini, and olive oil.
- Salad: Add drained chickpeas, diced cucumber, diced celery, and chopped cilantro to a large bowl.
- Toss: Drizzle the dressing over the salad and toss to combine. Serve immediately or store in an airtight container in the fridge.
Nutrition
Nutrition information calculated by Sarah Bond, degreed nutritionist.
did you make this?Leave a comment below and tag @liveeatlearn on social media! I love seeing what you’ve made!Meal Prep it!
Make a batch of this salad and portion it into 4 or 5 meal prep containers with a hardboiled egg and a handful of nuts (like pistachios or almonds).
I have made this salad many times now, and I’m always obsessed with it! It’s so good! A few times, I used fresh basil and lemon juice (which I had on hand) instead of cilantro and lime juice, and it was just as delicious, just with a slightly different flair. I think this would be great with parsley as well, as others have mentioned. Ugh, it’s so good! I just made some and am having a hard time waiting until lunch! Thanks for the recipe! 🙏
Thanks so much for the kind words, happy eating!
Love making this recipe! Any chance to get all my cucumbers used from my garden, this is always one of my first go-to’s. I can’t give this 5 stars because the name of the recipe doesn’t fit with the ingredients or sourced. Tahini, comes from an Arabic word, meaning “to ground”, as in the ground sesame seeds. Chickpeas first came from Syria then got its name from Egypt. A more appropriate name would be Arabic or Middle Eastern Sunshine Salad. That’s what we call it.
This is such a delicious salad and so easy to make. I eat it all week.
Big smiles over here, thanks for trying it!
Love it, I eat it almost everyday.
Amazing, that’s so lovely to hear, Jan!
Where does all the sodium come from?
The 1 teaspoon of salt 🙂 You can reduce this a bit if watching your sodium!
I made this for the second time today. I was also roasting chickpeas for the Roasted Chickpea Gyros (which we’ve also had before and love! I decided on a whim to roast two cans of chickpeas, and I put some roasted chickpeas in this Israeli Sunshine Salad. It was to die for! I told my husband it was too bad he didn’t like cucumbers, because this was the best salad I’d had in a long time!
Love hearing that, thanks for trying it Cathy!
I am old. I have been unlucky purchasing salad choppers. They continue to break and fall apart.
Since u make salads can u suggest one for me. I would love to try this tahini recipe
This is the chopper I use and like!
If you don’t like cilantro, is there a substitution?
Some readers have had success switching cilantro for parsley!
Delicious. Crunchy and fresh. I didn’t have fresh cilantro so I threw frozen cilantro into the dressing.
Hi there, the nutritional information is calculated for one serving but it doesn’t state what that one serving consists of. Can you please confirm what one actual serving is? I’ve already made the recipe and it’s waiting to be eaten.Thanks in advance.
Hi Renee! A serving is simply one fourth of the entire recipe. Happy eating!