This Moroccan quinoa salad with crispy chickpeas is protein packed and full of veggies! Make it today for a healthy meal prep lunch idea for the week! You guys seem to be obsessed with the lunch salads (especially this simple Asian salad) we make on Instagram, so here are 36 health salad ideas that you can add to your list of must make meal prep lunch recipes! But first, this Moroccan quinoa salad recipe!

The Best Lunch Recipe

Does anyone else have a hard time deciding what to have for lunch? It all started back in grade school when you had to decide on hot lunch or cold lunch at the beginning of the week! How do you know what you’re going to be in the mood for that day? So many options and at the end of the day. Who has time to make breakfast, lunch, and dinner while also trying to make everything healthy? Whew. This Moroccan quinoa salad with crispy chickpeas may be one of the best lunch meal prep recipes in all of the land. Why?

• It has so many different textures and flavors that you get excited to eat it for a few days in a row.
• You can have this salad as a main course or pair it with a different protein everyday to mix things up.
• You will make your co-workers jealous because of how gorgeous and delicious it is.

We have many meal prep recipes on Fit Foodie Finds, but I honestly believe salads like this are the perfect option for lunches. Before you continue to read on check out all of our kitchen meal prep essentials that will make meal prepping any meal a breeze!

How to Make Perfect Crispy Chickpeas

One of the best parts of this salad are the crispy chickpeas. You want to start this recipe by getting these bad boys in the oven so they are ready in time! These chickpeas add flavor and the perfect amount of crunch that every salad needs! Here are a couple of tips on how to make the most perfect crispy chickpeas.

• Make sure you strain and rinse your chickpeas and then remove as many of the outer shells of the chickpeas with a paper towel.
• Soak up any access moisture after rinsing the chickpeas with a paper towel. The drier they are, the more they’ll crisp up.
• Cover the chickpeas in seasoning! You need more seasoning than you think for a crispy and flavorful chickpea.
• When roasting the chickpeas, be sure they are spread out on the pan, not all clustered together in a pile!

How to Assemble this Salad

This salad has a few different layers to it. Try to focus on one layer at a time and when it’s time to mix everything together, you are going to be one happy camper!

Prepare the Quinoa

After getting the crispy chickpeas in the oven (read tips above), get your quinoa started on the stove. Quinoa is the base of this salad and has a longer cook time than some of the other layers. Tip–> If you need to speed up your quinoa cook time feel free to try making your quinoa in the microwave.

Massage that Kale

Quinoa and kale are the base of this salad and we are BIG advocates of massaging your kale (check out details on why in our how to massage kale post). Thankfully, massaging kale is super easy and one of the easiest parts of this recipe. The beauty is you can get this step done and set the kale aside until the end of the recipe. Tip–> If you want to skip adding a little extra olive oil to break down the kale, try using a little lemon juice instead!

Chop + Peel

One of the best parts of this salad is all of the different textures and sizes of all of the ingredients (that is one of the keys to a delicious salad). No matter what salad you are making, the more shapes, sizes, and textures you have, the more interesting (and fun to eat) the salad will be! After massaging your kale chop your onion, dates, and mint and toss them with the kale. We decided to make vegetable ribbons out of the carrots and the asparagus. Making vegetable ribbons is as simple as peeling a carrot, except you don’t throw away the peels, they go right into the salad. Tip–> How long your vegetable ribbons are depends on how long your carrot or asparagus is. If you cut the vegetables in half, the shorter your ribbons will be.

Keep the Dressing Separate

I love developing new salad dressings. Salad dressing is a great way to add amazing flavor to any salad. Guess what, salad dressing can be healthy and easy to make! All you have to do is place all of the salad ingredients in a mason jar, shake until all the ingredients are mixed together and you’re all set. Here’s a tip–> If you are meal prepping this salad, wait to add the salad dressing to the salad until right before eating it. Salad dressing can last up to 7 days in the refrigerator. If you’re looking for a different salad dressing for this recipe check out all of our favorite salad dressings here!

The Easiest Way to Meal Prep this Recipe

If you are meal prepping this recipe for the week, we recommend following the recipe in the recipe card. The only changes we would make would be to wait to add the crispy chickpeas and salad dressing to the salad until right before you plan on eating the salad. The chickpeas will get soggy if you add them right away and the rest of the salad may get soggy if you add the dressing too many days ahead of time! An easy way to keep the salad, dressing, and chickpeas separate is to store them all in this 3-compartment meal prep container! It will save you a ton of hassle!

More Vegetarian Lunch Ideas

• General Tsos Cauliflower
• Instant Pot Healthy Fried Rice
• 15 Healthy Buddha Bowl Recipes