Description
This healthy, hearty, and refreshing Oil Free Five Bean Salad is so easy to pull together for a quick salad, work lunch, picnic, or your next potluck.
Ingredients
Salad Ingredients:
- 1 – [ 15 oz. can ] chickpeas, drained and rinsed
- 1 – [ 15 oz. can ] kidney beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 – [ 15 oz. can ] navy beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 – [ 15 oz. can ] green beans, drained
- 1 – [ 15 oz. can ] yellow wax beans, drained *
- 2 celery ribs, small dice
- ½ red bell pepper, small dice
- ½ green bell pepper, small dice
- ¾ cup red onion, fine dice
Dressing Ingredients:
- ¼ cup + 1 Tablespoon red wine vinegar
- 2 Tablespoons distilled white vinegar
- 1 Tablespoon white miso *
- 3 Tablespoons organic maple syrup (+/-)
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1 Tablespoon dried minced onions
- Sea salt & Pepper to taste (optional) *
Optional Garnish/Toppings:
- Chopped flatleaf parsley
Instructions
Instructions:
- Make the salad dressing by adding all the dressing ingredients into a bowl and whisking until well combined. Set aside.
- Place all the salad ingredients into a large bowl, toss gently, then add in the salad dressing, tossing gently as you go until everything is coated in the dressing. Refrigerate for one hour (or more) before serving.
Notes
Tips for Success:
- Serving: This bean salad is delicious and tastes best just slightly chilled. The key is to refrigerate the salad for one hour to allow the dressing flavors to develop. After refrigerating, set the chilled bean salad out for 10 minutes to allow the flavors to come alive. Refrigeration tends to dull the flavor of fresh ingredients, if you set it out for a bit the ingredients perk up and you get the full-bodied flavors to shine.
- Oil-Free Dressing: The classic (Non-WFPB) version of this salad is made with oil which coats all the ingredients. Since this salad does not have oil, the dressing will be on the thin side. In other words, oil coats the ingredients, since there is no oil in this dressing, the dressing is on the thinner side and doesn’t coat to the ingredients. The recipe makes a nice amount of dressing without drenching the salad ingredients. The key to the deliciousness of this salad is to get a little bit of the dressing (that falls to the bottom on the dish) with each bite when served in individual bowls.
- Salt and Pepper: We had family members who preferred this salad with no sea salt or pepper. While we had others, who preferred a little bit of sea salt and pepper. We suggest making the salad, refrigerating it to allow the flavors to develop, then mixing it really well then tasting it right before serving to see if it needs sea salt and pepper. Or allow individuals to add sea salt and pepper to their own individual servings.
*Notes Continued:
*Beans: You can use any mix of cooked beans (and ratio) that you wish. If using cooked beans from an instant pot, etc. Select firm beans only as they create a better “mouth feel” for a cold salad.
*Green Beans: The classic version uses canned green beans. You could use fresh green beans, but you would need to cook them to the desired tenderness, cool them completely before adding them to the salad. We recommend using canned beans.
*Yellow Wax Beans: We normally would use yellow wax beans in this dish for the 5th bean, but we simply could not locate any. We used another can of green beans to make up for the lack of one can of yellow wax beans.
*Miso: We used Miso Master Organic Mellow White Premium Lite Miso, Certified Gluten Free. Miso really lends itself to balancing flavors when you don’t use oil. You can also use chickpea miso for a soy free version. The miso really helps balance the flavors in this recipe. We don’t recommend removing it.
*Storage: Refrigerate, use within 5 days.
*Servings: Makes 8 cups, 5 to 6 servings