This simple sweet pepper salad is bursting with flavor! We combine roasted sweet peppers with soft milky mozzarella, and add some crunchy roasted chickpeas for topping. A great side dish, or a light meal with some bread.
How completely delicious are sweet mini peppers? While trying to persuade my kids to try them, I actually told them that they were “basically candy in the form of a vegetable”… they weren’t persuaded, unfortunately, but I kinda meant it.
Sweet mini peppers lend themselves well to appetizers, to little stuffed peppers, and for snacking. But I’ve been trying to find ways to make them the star of a meal. And so this salad was born!
It’s simple but substantial and the textures are amazing. The peppers are roasted until they are super soft, melt in the mouth perfection. The soft mozzarella drinks up the juices and oils from the pan of peppers. For a crunchy element, we add some flavorful roasted chickpeas as a topping. It all works together perfectly. We don’t even need a dressing, in my opinion, because the pepper roasting oil gives us so much flavor (and we aren’t wasting any – whatever remains in the pan gets drizzled over the top in the end!)
Ingredient Notes, Substitutions & Additions
- Sweet Mini Peppers are what we’re after. They may just be called “mini peppers.” If you want to use full sized sweet peppers, cut down into strips, that will work too!
- You want the kind of fresh mozzarella that is stored in water. I prefer to use larger balls, so it can be sliced into larger pieces, but the mini balls / bocconcini will work too.
- Swapping in burrata would also work! But you would assemble it more carefully: you would just place the burrata on top of the peppers, then scatter the chickpeas over the top, and not mix anything together.
- If the chickpeas aren’t appealing to you, some toasted pine nuts or pistachios would add the crunch instead, but they’d be less bulky than the chickpeas so you would end up with fewer servings.
- Feel free to add some olives or sundried tomatoes if you want some extra flavor morsels in the mix.
- A balsamic glaze would also never be unwelcome here, but I chose to just use the pepper roasting oil for flavor and I felt like that was enough.
Make a meal of it…
This is a great side dish for a larger meal, but it can also be the centerpiece with one of these easy pairings:
- Pick up some nice fresh bread to have on the side, and you’ve got a light but well rounded meal.
- Add a baked sweet potato on the side (if you don’t have enough oven space, you could air fry them).
- Pair with a simple grain salad.
- Pair with tomato soup.
Sweet Pepper, Chickpea & Mozzarella Salad
Ingredients
- 6 tbsp olive oil, divided
- 18 oz (500 g) sweet mini peppers
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 8 oz (225 g) fresh mozzarella , packed in water, this is typically two balls
- 14 oz (400 g) can of chickpeas
- 1 tsp Italian seasoning
- ½ tsp smoked paprika
- salt and pepper, to taste
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 450F / 220C / 200C fan.
- Prep the peppers. Cut off the stems, slice them in half lengthways and remove the seeds. In a large bowl, toss them with 4 tablespoons of olive oil and the garlic powder. Add salt and pepper. Scatter on a baking tray lined with parchment paper, making sure to get all of the oil out of the bowl and over the peppers. Then place in the oven on the top shelf and set the timer for 10 minutes.
- In a large bowl (feel free to re-use the one you prepped the peppers in!) toss the chickpeas with 2 tablespoons of olive oil, the Italian seasoning and smoked paprika. Scatter on another baking tray, also lined with parchment, and place on the lower shelf of the oven.
- Meanwhile, slice the mozzarella and place on paper towels to absorb some of the extra water.
- Remove the peppers from the oven once the 10 minutes is up, flip them all over, and place back in the oven for another 5-10 minutes. You're looking for them to be collapsed flat, shrivelled and browning. Once the peppers are done, the chickpeas should be crisped up nicely too.Remove both from the oven and allow to cool for about 5 minutes before assembling the salad.
- Assemble the salad. Layer the peppers, basil and mozzarella slices on a plate. Scatter the chickpeas over the top (you may not want all of them – you can save some for snacking if you wish). Finally, pick up the pan the peppers roasted on and drizzle the remaining roasting oil over the top.Serve immediately.
