Italian Bean Salad
A simple Italian bean salad made with cannellini beans, juicy tomatoes, red onion, fresh herbs and a punchy garlicky dressing. It’s quick and easy to prepare, healthy, colourful and packed with the flavour of sunshine. Hands-on time is less than fifteen minutes, though a longer marinade allows all those delicious flavours to mingle. Perfect as a light main, side dish or part of an antipasti-style spread.
This post may contain affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. See my cookie and privacy statement for further details.
Dive Right In
- Why You’ll Want To Make This Italian Bean Salad
- Italian Beans
- Italian Style Bean Salad
- Ingredients, Additions And Substitutions
- How To Make Italian Bean Salad
- FAQs
- Other Bean Salad Recipes You Might Like
- Keep In Touch
- Pin It
- The Recipe
Why You’ll Want To Make This Italian Bean Salad
- Quick and easy – takes less than fifteen minutes of hands-on preparation.
- Fresh and flavoursome – with juicy tomatoes, fresh herbs and a punchy garlicky dressing.
- Healthy and satisfying – packed with plant protein, fibre, vitamins and minerals.
- Perfect for summer – ideal for hot days when you don’t want to cook and for outdoor eating.
- Flexible – make it with cannellini, borlotti or your favourite white beans.
- Versatile – enjoy as a light lunch or supper, side dish or part of an antipasti-style spread. Great for picnics and lunchboxes too.
Italian Beans
There are a wide range of beans and other pulses grown and eaten in Italy and most of them are heirloom ones. They’re hard, if not impossible, to get hold of unless you live in the region they’re grown.
Below, I’ve listed the two that are easy to source in the UK and are available in many parts of the world. You’re probably already familiar with them.
- Cannellini beans are small white and creamy with a delicate buttery flavour. They’re widely eaten in Tuscany and southern Italy and feature in many traditional dishes. They’re a key ingredient in hearty Tuscan soups such as this ribollita, as well as summer salads.
- Borlotti beans are firmer, with a nuttier and slightly sweet flavour. They’re especially popular in northern Italy. Although they work well in salads, their robust texture makes them particularly suited to soups and stews. For example, I’ve included them in this pumpkin stew.
You can use either bean in this salad, though I prefer creamy cannellini.
Italian Style Bean Salad
Italian bean salads are generally simple affairs. They tend to use a few basic ingredients and dress them in well flavoured olive oil and vinegar. As I quite like to eat bean salads as a main course or make it a substantial part of a meal, I tend to go for something rather more complex.
My Italian bean salad is thus more inspired by the ingredients of Italy rather than anything particularly traditional. Having said that shallots and homegrown tomatoes are often folded into both Tuscan cannellini bean salads and borlotti bean salads, so I’m not as far off as I thought.
I’ve made my salad in the Tuscan style with cannellini beans, but borlotti beans are also good. As basil is the king of herbs (so they say) and most definitely associated with Italy, I’ve incorporated quite a lot of it into the salad. Parsley gets a good look in too.
As there’s no cooking required and the salad is very quick to assemble, it’s a gem of a summer recipe. Eat it just as it is for a light lunch accompanied with crusty bread or crostini, serve as a delicious side dish, take it along to a potluck or jazz it up by adding a few other ingredients and turn it into your main meal.
Basically, it’s a Tuscan bean salad that works equally well for picnics as it does for lunchboxes and BBQ side dishes. It’s an easy no-cook midweek meal that’s bound to become a summer staple.
Ingredients, Additions and Variations
Because this Italian bean salad is a simple one with few ingredients, the ripeness and flavour of the tomatoes and freshness of the herbs makes a real difference.
Beans
To keep the Italian vibe of this salad, cannellini beans or borlotti beans are the ones to go for. Having said that, if all you have are butter beans, haricot beans or similar, it’s fine to use those instead.
Homecooked cannellini beans or tinned are best for this recipe. Jarred taste really good, but have a tendency to go mushy. If the beans are ready salted, you may want to reduce the amount of salt you add.
Herbs
This salad gets much of its flavour from the herbs, so be generous with them. I’ve used basil and parsley, which are the two most commonly used herbs for salads in Italy. If you have some soft fresh thyme leaves, you might like to add a few of those in too.
Onion
Whilst you could use a standard brown onion, for colour and milder flavour, red onions are best for this bean salad. Use a regular red onion as I did or red salad onions if you can get them.
Tomatoes
Small tomatoes that keep their shape, such as cherry tomatoes, work well in this salad. But really any well flavoured thin skinned tomatoes are good to go.
Dressing Ingredients
As you’d expect, you’ll want to use a well flavoured extra virgin olive oil for this recipe. An Italian one will make it seem more authentic. As for vinegar, I’ve used balsamic for flavour but have added lemon juice for freshness. I also like to add the lemon zest, mostly because it tastes good, but also for its gorgeous citrus aroma.
Garlic is key to the dressing as it provides much of the flavour, so use a fresh plump clove if you can find one. I like to add some finely chopped red chilli too, but that’s entirely optional.
If you’d like to make the dressing more complex, here are some ideas. Add any of the following:
- 3 sun dried tomatoes in oil – finely chopped
- 1 tbsp capers
- 1 tbsp pesto – I have many pesto recipes on Tin and Thyme. Here’s one for basil pesto and here’s one for parsley pesto.
- 30g (1oz) vegetarian Parmesan style cheese – finely grated
Variations
To make this salad more substantial, mix in some rocket leaves (arugula) just before serving. You could also add a can of chopped artichoke hearts, some halved black olives or roasted almonds.
How To Make Italian Bean Salad
Italian bean salad is quick and easy to make. It generally takes less than fifteen minutes. However, the beans really benefit from the marinade, so if you’re able to let them sit for twenty minutes or more, so much the better.
Please refer to the recipe card at the bottom of this post for exact method and quantities of ingredients used.
Step 1. Pickle Onion
Peel the onion, then cut it in half. Thinly slice each half so that you end up with a pile of half moons. Transfer these to a small bowl.
Halve the lemon and save one half for something else. Squeeze the juice from the lemon half you’re keeping and pour it over the onions. Stir and leave to pickle whilst you get on with the rest. Pickling helps to make the onions less pungent and easier to digest.
Top Tip – Finely zest the lemon before squeezing and add to the dressing ingredients.
Step 2. Drain Beans
Tip the beans into a sieve. If they’re tinned I like to rinse them, which I do by passing the sieve under the cold tap. If they’re jarred, they have a better taste so I don’t rinse.
Leave the beans to drain whilst you make the dressing.
Step 3. Make Dressing
Pour the oil and balsamic vinegar into a mixing bowl. Or straight into your salad bowl if you prefer. Make sure the bowl is large enough to take all the ingredients and to mix them. Add the salt & pepper.
Finely grate or crush the garlic and add to the bowl. I use a microplane (affiliate link) for this, which works really well. Give it a good stir.
Top Tip – If using salted beans, either omit or reduce the amount of salt added to the dressing.
Step 4. Marinate Beans
Give the sieve a good shake to remove any excess water. Then, using a large spoon or spatula mix the beans into the dressing as gently as you can so as not to break them up.
Leave to marinate whilst you prepare the rest.
Step 5. Prepare Fresh Ingredients
Remove the seeds and membrane from the chilli, if using. Chop half of it finely, then chop the remaining half into rings to use as garnish later on.
Add the chopped chilli to the beans and stir.
When you’re ready to serve the salad, halve the tomatoes or quarter them, if larger than a standard cherry tomato. Finely chop the parsley then roughly chop the basil, reserving some of the smaller leaves for garnish.
Top Tip – Basil doesn’t respond well to chopping, you can see how it’s got lots of black lines in the images. I chop anyway because I find it more convenient, but you’ll get a better effect if you tear the basil with your fingers instead.
Step 6. Assemble Salad
Give the beans a good stir and likewise the onions.
Tip the beans into your serving bowl, unless they’re already there. Add the tomatoes, onions and herbs.
Toss everything together and garnish with the reserved basil leaves and chilli rings, if using. Serve straight away.
Top Tip – If making the salad ahead of time, leave out the herbs. Toss everything else together and refrigerate until needed. Remove the salad an hour before serving so it can come up to room temperature. Add the herbs and toss everything together.
FAQs
Italian bean salad is versatile enough to serve as a side dish or light main meal. It works quite well just by itself, but is more substantial if served with crostini or crusty bread.
Enjoy it with other salads, as a barbecue side or as part of an antipasti-style spread. It also works for picnics, lunchboxes and garden parties.
Yes indeed, borlotti beans are a good bet as they’re a common Italian salad bean, but any white beans such as butter beans or haricot beans work well.
No, you can use beans straight from the tin or jar, though you can cook your own from dried if you like.
Italian bean salad is fabulous for meal prep or making ahead of time because the beans really benefit from marinating in the dressing. Just store it in the fridge for up to four days, but add the fresh herbs not long before serving.
The salad keeps well for up to four days in the fridge if kept in an airtight container. But as it’s best served at room temperature, remove it from the fridge an hour before serving. And give it a good stir to make sure any dressing that’s dripped to the bottom is well distributed.
Italian bean salad doesn’t do well in the freezer, so it’s best to make only as much as you need and eat any leftovers over the next few days.
Other Bean Salad Recipes You Might Like
- Best chickpea salad (Middle Eastern balela salad)
- Black bean & bulgur wheat salad
- Black bean & corn salad: Mexican style
- White bean salad: Spanish style
Keep in Touch
Thank you for visiting Tin and Thyme. If you make this Italian bean salad, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below. Do you have any recommendations or tips for making bean salads?
Please rate the recipe too. And do tag me @choclette8 on Instagram with your images, I really enjoy seeing your take on my recipes.
For more delicious and nutritious recipes follow me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Flipboard or Pinterest. And don’t forget to SUBSCRIBE to my weekly newsletter. Or why not join the conversation in our Healthy Vegetarian Whole Food Recipes Facebook Group?
If you’d like more Italian recipes, follow the link and you’ll find I have quite a lot of them. All delicious and nutritious, of course.
Choclette x
Italian Bean Salad. PIN IT.
Italian Bean Salad
Equipment
- microplane (affiliate link) optional
Ingredients
- 1 red onion sliced into thin half moons
- ½ lemon juiced (zest optional)
- 500 g cooked cannellini beans equivalent to 2 x 400g tin (8-9 oz)
- 150 g cherry tomatoes halved (or small tomatoes, quartered)
- 50 g basil leaves removed and roughly chopped
- 1 small bunch of parsley finely chopped
Salad Dressing
- 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
- 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1 clove garlic crushed
- 1 small red chilli (optional) – finely chopped
- ½ tsp sea salt or to taste
- good grinding of black pepper
Instructions
- Place the red onions into a small bowl, then squeeze the lemon juice over the top and give a good stir. Leave the onions to pickle for a bit whilst you prepare everything else. This helps to make the onions less pungent and easier to digest.
- Drain the beans through a sieve, if necessary (see tip below). You may want to rinse them briefly under running water, depending on how you like them and how salty they are.500 g cooked cannellini beans
- Remove the seeds and membranes from the chilli, then finely chop (see top tip in the notes below). Transfer to a salad bowl then add the remaining dressing ingredients and stir well.
- Give the sieve a good shake to remove any excess water. Then, using a large spoon or spatula mix the beans into the dressing as gently as you can so as not to break them up. Leave to marinate whilst you prepare the rest.
- Halve the tomatoes, or cut small ones into quarters. Add to the mixing bowl.
- Add the chopped parsley and basil and give another gentle stir to combine.150 g cherry tomatoes, 1 small bunch of parsley
- Leave to marinate for at least fifteen minutes before serving. However a couple of hours will allow the beans to soak up the dressing nicely.
Notes
Optional Extras
- 30g (1oz) Italian hard cheese – finely grated
- 3 sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil – finely chopped
- 1 tbsp capers
- 1 can artichoke hearts – roughly chopped
Nutrition Estimate
This post contains affiliate links which are marked with an asterisk* or (affiliate link). If you buy through a link, it won’t cost you any more, but I might get a small commission. Thank you for your support of the brands and organisations that help to keep Tin and Thyme blithe and blogging.