Cucumber, Chickpea, Tuna, and Egg Salad, a truly delicious and refreshing one-dish meal, ideal to enjoy on the hottest days of the year. I absolutely love cucumbers and eat a lot of them in summer, of all kinds. Today I wanted to prepare this recipe with the Barettiere cucumber (a variety from Puglia), which is not really a cucumber as it belongs to the melon family. With a delicate flavor, it’s very digestible, crunchy, and fresh, and can also be paired with a summer fruit salad. If you can’t find it, you can easily replace it with the type you prefer. The important thing is to eat cucumbers in abundance because they are not only rich in water but also have many other properties that are very good for our body.
If you like cucumbers, then don’t miss the upcoming recipes:
- Cost: Economical
- Preparation time: 15 Minutes
- Portions: 4 people
- Cooking methods: Stovetop
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: Summer
Ingredients
- 14 oz Barettiere cucumber
- 10.5 oz tuna in olive oil in glass jar
- 8.5 oz precooked chickpeas (1 package)
- 4 hard-boiled eggs
- to taste almonds with skin
- 2 sprigs basil
- 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- to taste salt and pepper
Tools
- 1 Plate for serving
- 1 Bowl
- 1 Knife
- 1 Cutting board
- 1 Small pot
Preparation
First of all, boil the eggs, allowing them to cook for 7 to 8 minutes depending on their size. Then drain them, immediately run them under cold water, and let them cool. Cut the Barettiere cucumber in half and remove the seeds as we do with any melon. Also remove the outer skin with a sharp knife and slice it into your preferred size.
Place it in a bowl, add the already cooked and drained chickpeas, and season everything with extra virgin olive oil, salt, and freshly ground pepper if possible.
Give it an initial stir, incorporate the roughly torn basil leaves by hand, and the almonds with skin. At this point, stir again and plate.
Arrange the tuna fillets on top of the freshly prepared salad after draining them as much as possible, the wedges of hard-boiled eggs, more basil leaves, and finally, a generous sprinkle of coarsely grated Parmesan cheese.
Serve our Cucumber, Chickpea, Tuna, and Egg Salad, extremely fresh as a one-dish meal, ideal on the hottest days of the year.
Tips
This salad keeps in the refrigerator for at least one day, but it will obviously lose freshness as the cucumbers tend to soften and lose all the water they contain.
If there are leftovers, eat it as soon as possible, but if you want to prepare it for an event, just keep all the ingredients separate and dress them at the last moment.
We can replace the almonds with the nuts we prefer if we don’t like them.
