Tag Archives: Green Bean Salads

Winter Red and Green Salad

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Unless you’re a close family member, it may surprise you to learn that I eat the same salad for lunch everyday. Arugula, thinly sliced romaine and radicchio, tossed with my home-made sherry and honey vinaigrette. I will toss in a bit of protein, either chickpeas, turkey, chicken, tuna or egg. A small handful of my house croutons is non-negotiable. It is always eaten, standing over the sink, from the stainless steel mixing bowl I tossed it in. Somehow it tastes better that way.

I created this salad as a way of forcing myself out of my rut. I wanted lots of vibrant colour on my plate, and I challenged myself to see if I could do it without any lettuce. In my mind I envisioned a red and green colour palate. The red was easy. Pomegranates added a sweet pop of texture and colour and blood oranges added the vibrancy I was craving.

For the green, I settled on green beans, sugar snap peas and frozen green peas. I made sure to refresh the green beans and sugar snaps in ice water after boiling, to preserve their verdant shade.

For the dressing, I started with mixing the juice of the blood oranges with some olive oil, but found that the oranges were missing the acidic punch I needed. A bit of red wine vinegar fixed that issue. Extra crunch in the form of toasted hazelnuts was a welcome textural addition.

Break out of your salad rut with this winter red and green salad. You’ll thank me.

Click here to print recipe for Green-and-Red-Winter-SaladDownload

Sicilian Haricots Verts and Tomato Salad

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This is the quintessential summer salad. Tender crunchy green beans and sweet, sun-kissed tomatoes. Sadly, we are still several months away from those beans and tomatoes, but we can fake it.

Most of the year, green beans look so full of promise, all bright and green, but in truth, they are imposters. Once you cook them, they disappoint. If you try to cook them briefly, they never have that fresh snap of summer beans, they just come out tough and leathery. If you try to cook them longer, to get them tender, they just end up mushy. And let’s not even talk about winter tomatoes. Red cardboard, disguised as a tomato. Enough said.

To satisfy my craving for verdant crunch, I bought haricots vert, those skinny pricey green beans. I’m sure my carbon footprint is huge, because they were probably from Kenya or Guatemala, but I wanted that tender crunch. Getting sweet tomatoes out of season is as simple as buying the little grape or cherry tomatoes. They have much better texture and flavour than their big sisters. Bonus points if you can find the rainbow baby tomatoes.
With the addition of toasted pine nuts, olives, capers and some ricotta salata, this salad had a decidedly Sicilian bent. For the dressing I whisked together anchovy paste (please use it even if you don’t think you like anchovies, it adds a powerful umami punch without tasting fishy), dijon mustard, garlic, lemon juice, white wine vinegar and extra virgin olive oil. Don’t forget to garnish with fresh basil leaves.

Click here to print recipe for Sicilian Haricot Vert and Tomato Salad.