Italian Bean Salad

1:33:00 PM

Today, we are going to a friend's house for a Bible Study and dinner. We have themes for these dinners; this evening's theme is Italian Food. I was assigned a vegetable or salad. My kiddos aren't the biggest fans of lettuce yet, so I wanted to be creative, but at the same time, I wanted something easy. After doing some research, I decided that a bean salad would be perfect--all the kids love beans, and we could make it ahead of time.It was so easy to throw this together, my four-year-old even helped me with it. We did use canned beans, and you could always use dried, but again, we were going for convenience.

But for convenience, doesn't this look super yummy?



I basically combined two recipes from here and here. I love that this recipe has loads of fiber but none of the creamy dressings that my family likes to put on traditional salad. I'm no expert, but as far as I know, this recipe is also gluten free. We sampled the recipe before we chilled it to marinate in the flavors, and even my somewhat picky four year old liked it!

Italian Bean Salad

3 15oz cans of white beans (I used a combination of cannellini beans and northern white)
1 medium bell pepper, diced
1/2 medium yellow onion, finely diced
the juice of 1/2 a lemon
4 oz sun dried tomatoes packed in oil, plus 1 tsp of the packing oil
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1/2 tsp Italian seasoning
pinch of salt
around 2 oz shredded parmesan cheese

Dump the beans into a colander.


Rinse and then drain well. Put the beans into your serving dish. Dice pepper and onion and put them into the dish, as well.


In a small bowl, mix lemon juice, sun dried tomato with the oil it was packed in, olive oil, vinegar, Italian seasoning, and salt


Pour over bean mixture and toss together. Add some of the cheese. Stir together gently. Sprinkle remaining cheese on top. Chill for at least one hour to allow the flavors to marinate.

If the cold weather a couple of weeks ago had not burned my garden so badly, I would have put fresh basil in as well, but maybe next time! I hope you enjoy.



P.S. “Come join The Salad Social at TidyMom sponsored by The International Olive Council’s Add Some Life” 

Sometimes I link up at the following places: Life as Mom
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The Finer Things and I Dream of Clean’s Spring Cleaning ChallengeA Little TipsyHow to Nest for Less,  Not Just a Housewife, The King's Court IV,  The Finer Things in Life, Simple Living, and Organizing Junkie.

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4 comments

  1. It is Mediterranean Diet month and I am promoting it on my blog. Your recipe is perfect for it. Please share it on my foodie friday party today.

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  2. So glad you shared this it went perfect with my bean dish and the med. diet theme. I hope to see you back next week.

    ReplyDelete
  3. This looks delicious and easy! I'll be making this soon!

    ReplyDelete