Beans and legumes are good sources of protein, and they’re filing too. Southerners often dish up beans for dinner during the summer along with fresh garden produce like tomatoes, cucumbers, and green peppers. In the South, it's common to serve cast iron skillet corn bread with such dinners.
Old fashioned soup beans are always tasty, but it does heat up the kitchen to cook down a pot of beans. On those really hot days, a bean salad using canned beans helps keep the heat down. It’s also nice to have a cold main dish when the temperatures are up.
Cold Bean Salad also works well as a pot luck dinner dish and even for camping trips. Just put it together, mix, and seal in an airtight container. This is one of those bean dishes that tastes even better after it’s been sitting a while.
Cold Bean Salad Recipe
- 1 can whole green beans (16 oz)
- 1 can red kidney beans (16 oz)
- 1 can garbanzo beans or chick peas (16 oz)
- 1/3 cup chopped pimentos (can buy them chopped and save time)
- ½ cup chopped onion (colored onions look nice)
- 1 cup wine vinegar
- ½ cup salad oil (vegetable or olive oil – for example)
- ½ cup sugar
- 2 tsp. salt
- 1 tsp. pepper (fresh ground is very good)
Directions:
- Drain the packing water from the three cans of beans. If the packing water is thick, you may want to use a colander, and rinse the beans.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine the beans, pimentos, and onion.
- In a small mixing bowl, combine the vinegar, oil, sugar, salt, and pepper. Then, pour over the beans and toss like a salad.
- Seal in an airtight container and refrigerator for at least an hour. It’s fine to chill the salad all day for dinner or to make it the night ahead and have it ready for the next day.
- When ready to serve, stir the bean salad a bit. If the sauce seems a bit runny, pour off some of the sauce. If the beans are well drained, this is usually not an issue.
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Other tasty cold, summer salads:
Cold Kidney Bean Salad – If you need a smaller bean salad, this one features one can of beans. Kidney bean salad makes a nice family side dish for dinner.
Pasta Salad – This is an easy salad to make, and it’s colorful. If you have extra salad vegetables, this is a nice alternative to a garden salad.
Old Fashioned Southern Potato Salad – There are loads of recipes for potato salad. This is a very traditional Southern Potato Salad recipe. It’s hard to beat a classic.
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