4 Bean Salad

Recipes

Web Resources

Site Info

[?] Subscribe To This Site

4 Bean Salad

"This 4 bean salad is a great dish for any large gathering of
hungry guests."

The easiest way of course to build a 4 bean salad is to open 4 different cans of beans and throw them in a bowl with some oil and vinegar. Nothing wrong with that but lets look at a few options before we get started. <<>>

First on the list is you really should rinse the beans in a colander with cold water rather than just pour the can into a salad bowl.

Canned beans are high in sodium and rinsing them has been said to reduce the sodium content by up to 40%. Some companies are starting to make "reduced sodium" or "low sodium" varieties as well.

Another option is using dried beans, soaking them overnight in water. This pretty much takes care of the sodium issue.

The next thing to look at is adding some vegetables to the salad. As this is a marinating salad you want to add something with substance to it. For this one I added carrots, onion, celery and bell pepper to it.

Finally for the dressing you can make any kind of oil/vinegar type you like. There are many flavoured vinegars out there so do a little experimenting with them. For salad oil I always use Virgin Olive Oil but use whatever you have. You don't have to use gourmet ingredients to make a decent salad.

Anyways here are the ingredients for the salad pictured below:

Ingredients:

1 can whole green beans
1 can red kidney beans
1 can lima Beans
1 can navy beans
1 small to medium red onion-chopped
2 celery stalks
1 bell pepper-chopped

Dressing:

1/2 cup salad oil
3/4cup cider vinegar
1 tsp. dried tarragon
1 tsp. dried oregano
1/2 tsp. mustard powder
1 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. salt

Empty all cans of beans into a colander and rinse under cold water.

Put all dressing ingredients into your salad bowl and whisk until mixed.

Put beans and all other vegetables into your bowl, add dressing and mix. You may want to use an extra large bowl or cooking pot for mixing as this is a large salad. Refrigerate overnight, stirring occasionally.

Before serving, drain off excess liquid if desired and taste. You may want to add additional salt and a little pepper.

Makes about 8 servings.