I’m not sure anything that’s a staple of countless downmarket salad bars and desultory office picnics deserves to be called a classic, but Three Bean Salad sure is a mainstay; and there’s something appealing about the combination of creamy cooked dried beans, crunchy green beans and sharp red onion that begs to be updated and refined.
The conventional three-bean salad is usually made with canned white beans, canned kidney beans, and canned or frozen green beans, all of it usually tossed in some version of “Italian” dressing.
Because I cook my dried beans from scratch in a pressure cooker, I omit one of the dried beans, usually the kidney beans. And because we have an abundance of local green beans now, I use fresh beans instead of canned or frozen.
As much as I like to use vinaigrettes to dress bean and fresh vegetable salads, what coats this two-bean salad better than vinaigrette and looks beautiful to boot is a pesto made with blanched whole herbs and bright briny capers.
A few chopped hard-cooked eggs smooths the sharp edges of this salad and gives it enough heartiness to stand on its own or make a delicious topping for crostini.
John Broening cooks at Duo and Olivea restaurants in Denver.
Two Bean Salad
Makes about 5-6 cups.
Ingredients
Herb Pesto
2 cups parsley leaves
1/2 cup mint leaves
2 teaspoons minced garlic
2 tablespoons toasted almonds or pine nuts
2 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons capers
Pinch chili flakes
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
Salad
2 cups cooked white beans or chickpeas
2 cups cooked green beans, cut into 1 inch pieces
3 hard-boiled eggs, chopped
1/4 cup finely diced red onions
Herb Pesto
1/4 cup olive oil
Juice of 1 lemon
Salt and pepper to taste
Directions
To make the Herb Pesto:
Bring a small pot of salted water to a boil. Place a small bowl of ice water nearby. Blanch the parsley and mint for about 20 seconds, drain, and then shock immediately in the ice water. When the herbs are cool to the touch, remove from the ice water and dry.
Place the herbs, garlic, nuts, parmesan, capers, chili flakes, olive oil, and salt and pepper in a food processor. Process until you have a rough paste. Refrigerate until ready to use. (Makes about 1 cup.)
To assemble the salad:
Place the white beans or chickpeas and the green beans in a large mixing bowl along with the hard-boiled eggs and onions. Fold in two-thirds of the pesto, the olive oil and lemon juice, and salt and pepper to taste. Add more pesto if necessary. Serve at room temperature as a side salad or on crostini as an hors d’oeuvre.
