Curried Bean Salad Recipe
This bean salad recipe salad features pretty heirloom beans along with a few black lentils, splashed with a brightly-flavored ginger-curry vinaigrette.
A bean salad will be as ordinary or extraordinary as the beans you start with. There's nothing wrong with using canned beans, but if good quality dried beans are parked just next door (and you get more beans for the money), it might be time to trade up. Trust me, it's like going from driving a Hyundai to a BMW. This salad features pretty Pebble beans alongside thinner-skinned Mayacoba and a few black lentils, all splashed with a brightly-flavored ginger-curry vinaigrette. You can certainly play around with the types of beans you use, I had two types of beans cooked up, and some black lentils in the freezer. With a minimal amount of chopping and a touch of whisking the salad came together in just a few minutes.
The Pebble beans are delightful to look at, a lot of fun to cook with, and although their colors and marks fade a bit during the cooking process in the end they still retain a nice amount of visual flair. The beans (from a single bush - not a blend) range in color from ivory to pale mustard, fleshy-pinks to cocoa colored. The second bean I used was the Mayacoba, a seductive pale mustard color when dried, they lose most of that in the hot water. This Peruvian bean works well in a salad like this because it's a cameleon of sorts, quite adaptable, nice texture, and it tends to take on the flavors around it - in this case the curry dressing.
More often than not the beans I use are from Rancho Gordo. Steve and his crew sell at my local market and I've cooked my way through many of his beans (which are also available via mail order). Steve's latest Rancho Gordo endeavor is an heirloom bean cookbook published by Chronicle Books - and it looks like it is shipping any day now. I'll feature a recipe from it as soon as I get my hands on a copy.
Premium Ad-Free membership includes:
-Ad-free content
-Print-friendly recipes
-Spice / Herb / Flower / Zest recipe collection PDF
-Weeknight Express recipe collection PDF
-Surprise bonuses throughout the year
Curried Bean Salad Recipe
The key to cooking beans from scratch for a salad like this, is to cook them until tender, but not until they are falling apart. Feel free to make the curry vinaigrette a day or two in advance. If you like a creamier dressing, toss a big dollop of Greek yogurt into the curried vinaigrette, taste, and go from there. I use black lentils here because they hold their shape quite well, you definitely don't want to use a bean or lentil that goes to mush.
3 cups cooked beans - I used equal amounts Pebble beans and Mayacoba beans, but you could certainly use white beans, black beans, black eyed beans, whatever - I bet edamame would be great in this salad. And while I like to cook my beans from their dried state, this is a forgiving salad and canned beans that have been well rinsed will work too. You can serve this salad hot or at room temperature, whatever your preference.
1 cup cooked black lentils*
1/2 medium red onion, thinly sliced into crescents
3/4 cup celery, chopped1 clove garlic
1/2 teaspoon of fine-grain sea salt
1 1/2 teaspoons of your favorite curry powder
1-2 teaspoons freshly grated ginger (from 1-inch cube of fresh ginger, peeled)
juice of 1/2 a lemon
1/3 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons cilantro, chopped
In a large bowl toss the beans, black lentils, red onion, and celery. Make the curry vinaigrette by mashing the garlic clove with the salt into a thick paste. In a bowl or jar whisk together this garlic paste, the curry powder, fresh ginger, lemon juice, and olive oil. Whisk well, taste, and add adjust flavors/salt if needed. Pour about half of the dressing over the beans and give it all a toss. Add more dressing a bit at a time until it is to your liking. Taste, make sure the salad has enough salt or the the beans will taste flat and the rest of the flavors won't pop. I like to serve this salad family style in a big bowl or on a platter with a big spoon all sprinkled with cilantro.
Serves about 4 - 6 as a side.
*Wash and pick over the lentils. Place them in a large saucepan and cover with water using 2-3x the quantity of lentils. Bring to a boil, scale back the heat a bit and simmer for 15-20 minutes. Taste along the way, when done the lentils should be tender but not splitting apart. Salt to taste at this point. Remove from heat and drain any remaining liquid.
Comments are closed.
Apologies, comments are closed.
Comments
Lovely looking salad. I love how you combined different beans in the salad. I imagine that would bring different textures to play as well as flavor. The dressing sounds wonderful too!
ooh I've never even heard of some of these beans! i'm tempted to sprout some beans I have at home and make this recipe raw!
I always get new ideas reading your posts: it's amazing to me how you make me "travel"... tastefully!
Definitely going to try this, and thank you for the link to Rancho Gordo. I just put in an order!
Love bean salad and this version looks yummy. To speed up bean cook time, soak beans for 8 hours and then freeze. Beans will cook fork tender in 20 to 30 minutes. Do not have to thaw bean to cook, just adds a little more time to cooking process.
This looks great. I'm a convert to using dried beans as much as possible. So delicious. Do you do anything special to your re-hydtrated beans before you freeze them? It seems like a good way to have some already ready to just thaw and add...
blog walking...:)
Ive never heard of pebble beans before. Looks like a fantastic lunch dish
Nice! Long live the pulse, the bean and all grains. They just don't get enough attention:) Thanks Heidi!
heidi, your picture shows some cilantro in there too, no?
It looks absolutely delicious -- I love beans and curry, so a perfect combination!
what beautiful plates! are they an heirloom?
yummy~ and i made a onion cake today,hehe~ so coincidence:)
Yum!! My mouth is really watering at the thought of this salad with the curry dressing.especially with the yoghurt. I have just finished eating my way through a big pot of Black Bean Soup with Kale and Fresh Herbs from the San Francisco Chronicle Cookbook, which somebody very kindly sent me for Christmas one year. Now that it is finally getting warmer here after all the snow last week this looks very appetising indeed.
Oh I got those pretty Pebbles at the Ferry Plaza market last time I was there, as I remembered seeing them featured here on this site beofore! They are so pretty. Haven't gotten around to using them yet (I know I should!) and this salad seems a perfect fare. Looking forward to reading/seeing more from your latest trip to South America.
This sounds delicious! I don't cook dried beans often, but this might just be enough to make me to it.
this sounds (and looks!) absolutely delicious!
ohh it looks so fresh and tasty I've got a bunch of vegan buds that this will be forwarded to
The ginger-curry vinaigrette sounds fantastic. And I am a big fan of spicy salads with sprouted/cooked lentils so this looks like a great recipe to try. Thanks.
I am always looking for more great ideas for beans. This looks awesome, thanks for posting it!
Comments are closed.
Apologies, comments are closed.