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Summer Salad Marathon: Mixed Bean Salad with Tomato Dressing


I currently have us on a "meat every-other-day" plan, but my low blood sugar requires protein in almost every meal. So...I am working very hard to find ways to incorporate beans into our diet. I'm not a big fan of beans (kidney, pinto, black-eyed, lima, you name it). I tend to tolerate them, and really only enjoy black beans in Mexican food. But in my quest for optimal health, it seems practical to find a way to eat them more often.

This recipe comes from one of my most-used and most-loved cookbooks, The Cook's Encyclopedia of Thirty Minute Cooking by Jenni Fleetwood. I don't really care about the "thirty minute" part (usually), but I love the variety and ease of the recipes.

In addition to blanched green beans (which I love), mixed canned beans (I used pintos and black beans), celery, onion (I used red), tomatoes, fresh parsley, I also tossed in a can of whole kernel corn....mostly for color, but I really liked the little bit of sweetness that it added.

The dressing calls for "tomato chutney" and that's not something I have on hand, so I just finely chopped a bunch of heirloom tomatoes and that did worked just fine:
  • 3 tbls olive oil
  • 2 tbls red wine vinegar
  • 1 garlic clove crushed
  • 1 tbls tomato chutney (?)
  • salt and ground black pepper
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