Marinated Celery Salad With Chickpeas and Parmesan

Marinated Celery Salad With Chickpeas and Parmesan
Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times
Total Time
30 to 40 minutes, plus marinating
Rating
5(1,705)
Notes
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Celery is an underappreciated vegetable that brings wonderful crunch, perfume and bitterness to a salad (and no wonder: It’s related to carrots, parsley and fennel). Here it is front and center in a main-dish salad, especially satisfying with a poached egg or some charcuterie on the side. Buy full green heads of celery, not the pale hearts, and make sure the leaves are still attached. But if you can’t find celery with leaves, chopped parsley is a reasonable substitute. —Julia Moskin

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Ingredients

Yield:6 to 8 servings

    For the Salad

    • 3tablespoons sherry vinegar, more as needed
    • 1tablespoon Dijon mustard
    • ½teaspoon maple syrup or honey
    • Salt and ground black pepper
    • 2garlic cloves, smashed and peeled
    • cup extra-virgin olive oil, more as needed
    • 4cups cooked or canned chickpeas
    • 4large or 6 small celery stalks, trimmed (reserve the leaves) and cut into large julienne
    • 2large scallions, white and pale green parts, thinly sliced on a diagonal, or ¼ cup thinly sliced red onion
    • 1 to 2cups loosely packed celery leaves, coarsely chopped
    • 1pint small tomatoes, halved
    • ¼cup loosely packed basil leaves, rolled and julienned
    • 2ounces Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, coarsely grated, or crumbled feta

    For Serving (optional)

    • 1small loaf (or ½ large loaf) day-old, peasant-style crusty bread
    • Romaine or butterhead lettuce, endive or escarole, cut or torn into bite-size leaves
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (8 servings)

331 calories; 15 grams fat; 3 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 8 grams monounsaturated fat; 2 grams polyunsaturated fat; 39 grams carbohydrates; 8 grams dietary fiber; 7 grams sugars; 13 grams protein; 470 milligrams sodium

Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.

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Preparation

  1. Step 1

    In a large bowl, whisk together vinegar, mustard, maple syrup and a large pinch each of salt and pepper. Drop in garlic cloves, stir, and set aside 15 to 30 minutes to let the flavor infuse.

  2. Step 2

    Gradually whisk in oil; dressing will emulsify. Mix in chickpeas, celery and scallions. Cover and refrigerate at least 2 hours or overnight.

  3. Step 3

    Remove garlic cloves from dressing. Taste and adjust the seasonings with salt, pepper, vinegar and olive oil. Set aside to come to cool room temperature.

  4. Step 4

    If desired, make croutons, for serving: Heat oven to 400 degrees. Pull the soft bread out of the center of the loaf, leaving most of the crust behind, and tear bread into bite-size pieces. You should have about 3 cups. Spread pieces on a rimmed baking sheet and bake for about 12 minutes, until golden and crisp; let cool.

  5. Step 5

    Just before serving, mix celery leaves, tomatoes, basil and croutons, if using, into the salad. In a serving bowl, place a layer of greens, if using, in the bottom. Add celery mixture, then top with cheese and more black pepper.

Ratings

5 out of 5
1,705 user ratings
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Cooking Notes

How do you get 2 cups, or even 1, of celery leaves from 4-6 celery stalks?

Love the dressing! I supplemented the celery leaves with fresh parsley, added lettuce and fennel to the mix. I think feta cheese would work better than parmesan as we found the taste to be somewhat bland with the original recipe. Also I suggest cutting the Celery very thin or cutting across the celery as the Larger julienne celery was awkward to eat .

This salad was delicious! My only complaint is that using julienned celery made the salad more difficult to eat because of the various shapes and sizes of the ingredients. Next time, I would just slice the stalk of celery thinly.

Six months on and I'm leaving a second note here because I make this salad all. the. time. With a few changes, though: I mince the garlic, chop the celery, and usually use mint and feta instead of basil and parm. And I've never seen the need for croutons, lettuce, or even the scallions, for that matter.

I always drain and rinse chickpeas and I did so for this recipe as well. They should have stated that to make it easy for everyone.

Good question. Farmers' market?

Supermarkets chop off leaves from their produce because the leaves are such good indicia of freshness.

Great recipe! I used freshly cooked chickpeas (from Rancho Gordo). If chickpeas are the star then I think it makes sense to use the best you can. I cut my celery on an extreme diagonal, so it looked like julienne strips, but was easier to eat. I had one cup of celery leaves and filled in with parsley leaves. I didn't care to use cherry tomatoes but used sliced radishes instead. I felt that was a better match for the crunchy vegetables. Will be making this again.

My farmers market bunches of celery sometimes have a good deal more than 2 cups of leaves attached. Try a local farmers market if you have one available; you may find that the celery there is as much about the leaves as the stalks. Frustrating if you're not planning on it, but brilliant for intensity of flavor as an herb in soups and all manner of other preparations if you are.

As I do not have any sherry vinegar, I mixed 2 tbsps cider vinegar with 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar, and it seemed to work well. Also, I crushed the garlic and added it to the dressing, because I don't see how you can easily retrieve pieces of garlic from the salad as mentioned in step 3. But this is a delicious salad that I have made twice now.

My celery had no leaves on it (lame!) but I through in some fresh dill and parsley instead of the celery leaves. Great with feta and bonus: avocado!!!

Asian celery is strongly flavoured and the leaves are always included. Substitute for some or all of the Pascal celery.

I stopped after adding the "scallions" (I used red onions instead). A couple of hours in the fridge and this was a delicious, hearty vegan salad. Adding tomatoes, basil, celery leaves and parmasean just seemed like overkill.

Loved this recipe. Have been looking for a way to enhance the humble celery stalk. And this was it.
It's a lot of salad -
And it held up well for a few days.

Glad I found this recipe again...I'd lost it for a while! I use a mix of celery and fennel, sliced on a mandolin. Since I rarely have celery leaves in quantity, use flat parsley and fennel fronds to make up the difference. For a lighter version, I omit the garbanzos and toss with some arugula. Serving tonight with grilled chicken and roasted carrots.

Incredibly delicious and better the next day without the croutons! Would make this again!

This is unbelievably delicious! I really had no idea how herbaceous celery leaves are until directed to use them for this recipe. So good!

i've made this so many times and it is so delish & I always get compliments

Mint, feta

Delicious! And agree with others—next time I will make the celery bite-size instead of julienne, and I added more than 6 stalks to get enough leaves. Loved it!

Just to note the comments designated "helpful" were indeed among the most concisely helpful I've seen in NYT Cooking. Thanks everyone! My contribution: since I had the dreaded supermarket-groomed celery, I had no celery greens, but had lots of carrot greens, and used them, along with flat leaf parsley. No sherry vinegar but a Pinot Noir vinegar. Mixed with arugula and baby spinach without garbanzos. Terrific. This is a very forgiving recipe. Maybe I'll follow it next time!

I grow cutting celery (grows leaves only) in a pot every summer with the specific purpose of making this salad multiple times. Easy to grow and so satisfying to have plenty of leaves to truly appreciate this recipe.

Added walnuts, omitted tomatoes and added more of the marinade. Put over protein greens and endive. This was a hit that I will add to regular rotation.

Would chop the celery smaller into bite sized pieces to make it easier to eat. I added shallots instead of scallions to reduce waste (only calls for ~2 scallions) but still maintain the onion flavor. Great salad to pack for a work lunch!

This is amazing and super versatile. Definitely let it marinate as long as possible; it just gets better and better.

This salad has been in my regular rotation for years. (Although I adore tomatoes, I choose to omit them for this recipe.) What I'm most grateful for is the dressing in this recipe. I often create a hybrid recipe using this dressing with another salad recipe, and when there are guests, there is always particular praise for the dressing. The best. :)

This was not a hit at my recent dinner party but I really like it and am eating all of the leftovers. I don’t think the celery leaves really add anything, same for the tomatoes. I think next time I will leave those out. The basil is lovely though. I kept the feta out and added it per portion. I also cut the celery thinly crosswise instead of julienne cut.

In Autumn/Winter, I substitute sun-dried tomatoes for fresh and add them along with the other vegetables to marinate overnight. Make this all the time.

What a good, adaptable recipe. We had everything on hand but the radicchio in the photo. I have enough bitterness in my life, thankyouverymuch. If you eschew lettuce, the leftovers will keep in the fridge, right? Other additions to consider: fennel, sweet pepper, pepperoncini, toasted pepas, pomegranate, raisins, feta or goat cheese crumbles... This is a keeper.

Uh, wow. This was SO good. The salad was delightful without tomatoes/croutons/leafy greens, too. I followed the recipe exactly but made my garbanzo beans from scratch, with carrot, celery, garlic, onion, a bay leaf, and some veg bouillon...normally I am a major fan of the convenience of canned beans, but this was worth planning ahead. 10/10 will make again. SO so good.

I sliced the celery thinly on an angle which worked great. Used black eyed peas (because they are smaller), feta, and did not use basil. Delicious.

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Credits

Adapted from “The Vegetable Butcher” by Cara Mangini (Workman, 2016)

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