Barbecued Beef, Beetroot And Chickpea Salad

A dinner salad dish that actually feels like dinner

This recipe will earn its keep in your summer recipe repertoire, because it is built like a main meal, not a side dish pretending to be dinner. You have delicious beef as the centrepiece, chickpeas for body, and beetroot for sweetness and depth, with baby spinach and beetroot leaves keeping it fresh. It is also genuinely weeknight friendly, with a short prep and cook time on the Church Street Butcher recipe card.

The clever bit is that the salad does most of the heavy lifting while the barbecue does the flavour. Char on the beef, earthiness from beetroot, and that soft nutty bite from chickpeas. Add goat cheese and a quick drizzle of olive oil and balsamic, then chives, and you have a plate that feels finished with very little fuss.

Choosing the beef that grills fast and slices tender

Because the beef is being sliced and spread through the salad, you want a steak style cut that cooks quickly and stays tender when cut thin. Rump is a great match here and it is the cut used in the original recipe. Other barbecue friendly options include sirloin or porterhouse, rib eye or scotch fillet, and similar quick cook steaks.

Keep the seasoning simple and let the grill do the work. Bring the steak closer to room temperature for more even cooking, pat it dry, then use oil and salt and pepper. That is the same no drama approach you will see across most steak focused recipes, because a good crust plus a proper rest delivers flavour without needing a long ingredient list.

Ask our local butcher’s instore to cut to your requirements
Ask for a quick grill steak cut that will slice neatly across the grain for a salad.

High heat, short cook, smart rest

This recipe is built for direct heat. Preheat the barbecue or a chargrill pan to medium high, get a light coat of oil on, then cook the rump steak until it is done to your liking. The reference recipe gives a straightforward timing guide, then it goes straight under foil to rest while you assemble the platter.

Resting is not optional if you want tender slices. Take the steak off a little before it is exactly where you want it, because the internal temperature keeps rising as it rests. Give it a proper pause, then slice, and you keep more juices in the meat instead of on the chopping board.

Slice against the grain and dress in the right order

If there is one small detail that makes the whole salad feel restaurant level, it is slicing against the grain. You are shortening the muscle fibres, which is exactly what you want when the beef is served in thin slices over greens and legumes. It is also a trick the Church Street Butcher site leans on in other beef salad recipes, where the instruction is simple and direct, rest then thinly slice.

Then dress with intention. With salads like this, you get the best result when the leaves are lightly coated first, then the beef is added on top so it stays glossy and clean, not drowned. You can see that same approach in the site’s beef salad posts, where most of the dressing goes through the greens, then the sliced beef finishes the plate.

Small visual cue worth adding in the article
A tiny diagram showing the grain direction on a steak and which way to slice.

Melbourne friendly variations that still feel butcher approved

The original build is already a shortcut friendly win. Canned chickpeas and ready to eat baby beetroot mean you can focus your time on cooking the steak properly, which is where the flavour lives. This a very practical way to cook, keep the method tight, let the main ingredient do the talking.

From there, you can make it suit the day without breaking the logic of the recipe. Swap the leaves to suit what is looking good at the greengrocer, rocket for bite, cos for crunch, or a softer mix if you want it gentler. Keep the salty creamy element, goat cheese is in the base recipe, but a similar style of crumbly cheese works too. Serve it as a lighter summer dinner, or make it a heartier lunch with crusty bread on the side, especially if you are feeding bigger appetites.

If you have cooked for meat based salads before, it feels familiar. The Church Street Butcher blog already leans into salads that eat like a meal, steak plus bold greens plus something with substance, and this one sits neatly in that lane.