Spring Recipe: Green Bean Salad
Quick to prepare, this green bean salad is perfect for your midweek lunches. Packed with plant-based protein and rich in antioxidants to make sure you stay full throughout your day, and well this spring.
Ingredients:
1 tin of butter beans
1 tin of chickpeas
1/2 a cucumber
1/2 a courgette
2 handfuls of spinach
Roughly 10 mint leaves
As many green olives as you like
For the dressing:
1 tablespoon of wholegrain or dijon mustard
1 tablespoon of tahini
2 tablespoons of olive oil
1 lemon
Recipe:
Optional: 1 teaspoon of flavoured vinegar: apple cider, balsamic, or red wine vinegar.
1. Empty your can of drained and rinsed butter beans into a large mixing bowl.
2. In the same bowl, empty your chickpeas, along with half of the water in the tin, (we want to keep that delicious water, also called aquafaba, for our salad dressing).
3. For the salad dressing, combine your mustard, tahini, a healthy glug of olive oil (around 2 tablespoons) and a freshly squeezed lemon, all into the same mixing bowl.
If you have any flavoured vinegar: apple cider, balsamic, or red wine vinegar, you can add a teaspoon to the mix. It’s not essential, but it marries well with the acidity of the mustard and the bitterness of the tahini.
4. Give everything in the bowl a good stir. You want the beans to soften in the dressing while you chop the salad.
5. Thinly slice your cucumber and courgette halves, if you can, using a mandolin. The courgette is best eaten raw when as thin as possible. Set them both aside.
6. Roughly chop 2 handfuls of spinach and finely cut your mint leaves into small strips. Set them aside as well.
7. Cut as many olives as like into halves. Be generous.
8. Add your cucumber, courgette, spinach, mint and olives to the mixing bowl with your well-flavoured beans. Generously stir before serving. Enjoy.
Written by Amelia Rose
Amelia is a writer and food enthusiast based in Bristol. She enjoys testing new recipes and trying new restaurants. She writes most about food, the environment and animal rights.
