Three Bean Salad

My green beans are producing enough for a meal every day. Unfortunately those lengthy legumes are hard to spot amongst like-colored foliage. Plus foraging through the greenery, my arms get a bit chafed from the leaves. Lots of veggies have nasty little prickles on them that can scratch and poke at you.

The best part of those green delights? ... the plants were completely volunteer this year. That's the bonus of composting and then working the lovely completed soil into the garden in early spring.

Green beans are rich in carotenoids and antioxidants plus silicon, an important mineral for bone health. Add to that a healthy dose of vitamins C, K, A, manganese, folate, fiber, vitamin B6, molybdenum, magnesium, potassium, vitamin B2, iron and vitamin B1. Green beans even provide protein and omega-3 essential oil.

Store fresh green beans unwashed in a plastic bag in the crisper. They will keep for a week. They freeze well while retaining valuable nutrients for up to six months. If you only have canned beans to use in your recipes, studies show that they still contain much of their nutrients. That's good news.

Three Bean Salad

From Chris Pedersen

Yield 4 servings

Category Salad

Cuisine Healthy, Vegan

Ingredients

1/2 C fresh green beans

1/2 C kidney beans

1/2 C garbanzo beans

1/8 C of chopped red onion

1/8 C of chopped celery

1/8 C apple cider vinegar

1/8 C extra virgin olive oil

1 Tbsp raw honey

salt & fresh ground pepper

Directions

1. Trim beans and cook in steamer over boiling water for 3 minutes until beans are dark green and slightly soft.

2. Rinse in cool water to stop them from cooking more. Pat dry and cut into 1-inch pieces. Place in bowl with lid.

3. Add kidney beans, garbanzo beans, onions and celery to bowl and set aside.

4. Mix oil, vinegar and raw honey together. Add salt and ground pepper.

5. Pour dressing over the bowl of beans and stir.

6. Cover the bowl with a lid and place in refrigerator for one hour to marinate before serving. Stir the mixture after 30 minutes to distribute the dressing.

This salad just gets better every day as the beans take on the flavor of the vinaigrette dressing. Enjoy this recipe the rest of the summer. Double the recipe so you have lots in the refrigerator or enough to take to your next barbecue.

Use any type of bean to make this salad. I picked my favorites. You might also like to add other veggies. For my last batch, I didn't have celery on hand. Instead I added diced red peppers from the garden. And how about changing up the dressing by adding a bit of balsamic vinegar, lemon juice or orange zest. You know I love to just throw things together—you can do it too! Really you can!

What are your favorite beans for salads?