Way back in 2013, I was invited to a pot luck lunch celebrating the publication of Deborah Madison’s beautiful book, Vegetable Literacy. Besides Deborah, who I worship, many of my favorite food writers, including Heidi Swanson and Bryant Terry, would be there. The assignment was simple — bring something vegetarian to share. At the time, I was just embarking on my writing career, supporting myself with catering gigs and the occasional blog post for Yoga Journal.com, for which I got paid a whopping $25. This is all to say, I was both poor and feeling major pressure to impress the other guests.
I gave myself the challenge of making a dish without buying any new ingredients. Scanning my fridge and pantry, I found a bag of Rancho Gordo cranberry beans, some of my favorite Valbreso feta, and a red onion and decided to make a marinated bean salad. I simmered the beans until tender, let them cool a bit, then tossed them with a sliced red onion macerated in red wine vinegar. I crumbled in the cheese and added some ground cumin and cilantro, then dressed the salad with olive oil and more vinegar. I headed to the pot luck hoping no one would be offended by my humble offering.
In fact, the opposite happened! The oohs and ahhs surprised and delighted me. And for years afterward, when I’d bump into someone who’d been at that luncheon, they’d breathlessly mention that bean salad. It’s a good reminder that delicious doesn’t necessarily mean things have to be fancy or complicated.
In the spirit of the un-recipe, I’m offering a template for all bean, legume, and pasta salads, since they essentially follow the same formula. The key here is proper and generous seasoning, since starches can easily fall flat. If you’re cooking your starch from scratch, use plenty of salt in the water. If using pre-cooked beans, make sure to season to taste as you go. Plentiful acid, whether citrus juice or vinegar, is also important to bring the starch to life. Add herbs for color and freshness and lots of good olive oil for richness. Finally, pick your pizzazz to add texture and a few more dimensions of flavor.
This sort of marinated salad gets better as it sits, so try to give it 30 minutes or so to come together before serving. But you can also make it up to a day in advance, store in the fridge, then bring to room temperature before serving as a side dish or light lunch. This dish also travels well and is best at room temperature, so it’s great for packed lunches, pot lucks and picnics. It’ll also keep in the fridge for up to a week — just zhuzh up the leftovers with salt and acid as needed.
Happy cooking, my friends! And let us know what kind of starchy salads you end up making!
Marinated Bean Salad
Pick a legume, grain, or pasta to build your salad around:
We used corona beans, but you could choose kidney beans, black beans, garbanzo beans, edamame, pinto beans, or even (a team favorite) fava beans! 🐶🩷
You could also choose a grain instead, such as farro, bulgur, barley or brown rice.
Some of the smaller pasta shapes could also be good, like orzo, orecchiette, fusilli, or farfalle—to name a few.
Pick an allium & herbs:
Shallot is an easy allium choice. Green onions or red onions will work well too.
We used dill and chervil. If you want some other ideas, check out our earlier post on herb selection.
Pick some pizzazz, plus oil & acid to round out your salad:
Pizzazz is the one ingredient (or a few) that gives your salad a little oomph and interest. It’s the wild card that both completes the salad and makes it unique to you. This could be some fresh or blanched greens or vegetables, crumbled cheese, toasted nuts, torn olives, capers, roasted or pickled peppers, tinned fish or what have you. We kept things fairly simple with cherry tomatoes, roasted corno di toro peppers, and feta cheese. The key with pizzazz is restraint—you don’t want to end up with a kitchen sink salad!
We used extra virgin olive oil and sherry vinegar, but you can use lemon or lime juice, red or white wine vinegar, or any other type of vinegar you like! If you’re going for Korean or Japanese flavors, use a neutral oil and a little drizzle of toasted sesame oil.
Assemble your salad:
Slice your allium, then macerate in enough acid to just cover
If you’re curious, we go into a little more detail about macerating your alliums in this post
Chop herbs
Mix allium + herbs with rinsed beans (or other starch)
Season with olive oil + salt + maybe some grated garlic
Add some pizzazz & season one final time
Marinate for 30 minutes before serving, then garnish with fresh herbs and serve
This sounds so good! Thank you for being there, for being real, and helping us all through trying times. I love how you bring exceptional food/cuisine into the realm of everyday folks like me :)