A beautiful radicchio salad with green olives, chickpeas, and Parmesan. Quick and easy to toss together. Great with chicken or fish.

Photography Credit: Emma Christensen

Radicchio is such a beautiful vegetable on the table, but those vibrant purple leaves are so bitter that it can be tricky to figure out how to work them into a recipe.

Here’s one idea: a light, but satisfying salad full of buttery green olives, nutty chickpeas, salty Parmesan cheese, and a sweet balsamic vinaigrette.

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All these flavors and textures balance the radicchio, making a colorful, elegant – and quick! – seasonal salad for your dinner table.

Radicchio is a member of the chicory family along with endive, escarole, and puntarelle. It looks similar to a small head of purple cabbage and can range from fist-sized to soft-ball-sized. Look for it near the cabbages and leafy greens at the grocery store.

Buy heads of radicchio that feel very firm and tight when gently squeezed and that feel heavy for their size. Avoid heads that look like they’ve been battered about or that feel soft or wilted — this is a sign that the radicchio is old or has been poorly handled during transit.

Back home, store your radicchio in the crisper drawer. Individual heads will keep well for several weeks.

The green olives are a key player in this salad. Not only do they look oh-so-lovely against the purple of the radicchio, but they add a sweet, buttery flavor that makes a counterpoint to the lightly bitter leaves. Plus, they come already pitted, which makes prepping them for this salad a breeze.

When it comes time to grate your Parmesan cheese, use a Microplane grater or the finest holes on your cheese grater. This creates thin, airy strands of cheese that melt into the salad and help flavor every bite.