Mixed Bean Salad

Mixed Bean Salad with tomatoes, cucumbers, spring onions and a tangy-sweet dressing, a quick and easy wholesome recipe that is perfect for picnics, bbqs or a light side dish for any roast. It's healthy, nutritious and pretty filling too.

Don't you love an easy homemade recipe that is jam-packed with amazing flavours and makes you feel good about yourself? Salads are a sample food in summer when we are back to eating lighter, healthier dishes.

But salads shouldn't be labelled as boring food for weight loss, on the contrary, they can be as delicious and nutritious if they are prepared the right way with the right kind of ingredients.

The more nutritious ingredients you add to a salad, the better. My Mediterranean Chickpea Salad with Feta and Roast Pumpkin Quinoa Salad with Feta are two other examples that salads don't have to make you hungry minutes after you finish them.

I absolutely love beans, and they are so underrated. They are an excellent source of dietary fiber, protein, important nutrients, and they can be cooked in so many ways.

HOW TO MAKE MIXED BEAN SALAD

For this recipe I used canned cannellini and kidney beans, but you can use any other beans that you have around: butter beans, black beans, pinto beans, and so on.

For the salad

• add the beans to a colander, and rinse with plenty of cold water
• transfer the beans to a bowl, and add the chopped tomatoes, cucumber and green onions to them

For the dressing

• to make the dressing, mix together the olive oil, lemon juice, honey, salt and pepper, then pour it over the rest of the ingredients and give it a good stir
• serve cold or at room temperature

BEAN SALAD VARIATIONS

This bean salad can be as simple or as filling as you wish. The cucumbers and tomatoes add a touch of freshness and summer. I used spring onions as they are not as pungent, but regular or red onions can be used too, if you don't mind a sharper touch.

Other veggies that would work well here are sweetcorn, radishes, avocadoes, olives, green beans and peas, or green salad chopped well.

Feta cheese would be another great addition, I absolutely love cheese in salads, my Cucumber Tomato Avocado Feta Salad Recipe is so tasty, and the feta certainly ups the nutritional value.

And the best thing is that the salad can be prepared in advance, stored in a plastic container, and enjoyed cold just before meal time. Do give it a go!

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