FOUR-BEAN SALAD

FOUR-BEAN SALAD

yields 6 TO 8 PEOPLE AS A SMALL SIDE

ingredients

  • 1 clove garlic
  • 2 TBL lemon juice
  • 2 TBL rice vinegar
  • 3 TBL apple cider vinegar
  • 1/4 cup olive oil
  • 0.5 LB green beans, cut into 1-inch pieces
  • 1 1/2 cup each cooked chickpeas, kidney beans, and cannellini beans
  • 1 1/4 cup celery
  • 1/2 medium red onion, cut into 1-inch pieces
  • 1/2 cup fresh parsley
  • 1/2 tsp garlic powder
  • 1/2 tsp celery seed
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • Black pepper

Instructions

1 Make the dressing: Throw the mustard, sweetener, garlic, lemon juice, vinegars, and olive oil together in a small jar and shake the out of it. Set it aside.

2 Get the salad going: Place a steamer insert and a couple inches of water in a small pot. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Add the green beans, cover, and steam until they’re tender but not sad and mushy, 8 to 10 minutes.

3 When the green beans are ready, run them under cold water to chill them out and then dump them into a large bowl with the chickpeas, kidney beans, and cannellini beans. Add the celery, onion, parsley, and the dressing and mix those bean brothers up until everything looks nice and coated. Add the garlic powder, celery seed, salt, and a little pepper. Mix again until everything is distributed.

4 Cover the salad and stick it in the fridge for at least an hour or as long as overnight. Before serving, taste it and see if it needs more salt or pepper, then dig in.

Modifications

You could use frozen here instead of fresh, but we aren’t down with canned green beans. They are always way too mushy.

One 15-ounce can of each bean, drained and rinsed, would do too. Also, feel free to mix things up. You could do shelled edamame, navy, and kidney, or whateverthe you’ve got. Just try to mix up colors and the textures so this isn’t boring as to eat. All mushy beans = a terrible salad.

About 5 ribs celery.

We used flat-leaf parsley because we’re fancy like that, but use whatever your store stocks.

Celery seed is your secret weapon to make food that screams “summer party picnic table .” It should be with the rest of the spices at the store. If you can’t find it, just leave it out and tell your grocery store to get their in order.