Chilled Green Bean Salad

You’ll find out pretty quickly that I’ve got a chilled salad for probably every day of the week. Really.

I went through this phase last year where I had just found my new local farmer’s market, and I had all of these incredible ingredients, so I was bringing a salad to work every single day.

Eventually you get tired of lettuce based salads. I started to get creative with my salad bases, experimenting with different legumes, grains, and grilled vegetables. This green bean salad was one of my favorites! It’d also make a great summer side salad for an outdoor cookout or lake picnic!

For this salad, you’ll need:

• fresh green beans
• quinoa
• chickpeas
• cucumber
• feta cheese (optional, omit for vegan version)

You’ll also need to gather a few different ingredients for an awesome champagne vinaigrette:

• red onion
• olive oil
• champagne vinegar
• lemon
• fresh dill
• fresh parsley
• kosher salt and cracked black pepper

For this particular salad, I made the vinaigrette first, in the base of the bowl, and then built the salad on top of it. So this dressing recipe is notated in exact measurements, rather than a larger batch. If you want to make a larger batch of the vinaigrette, just scale it up to however many servings you’d like, toss all of the ingredients into a mason jar, give it a shake, and you’re all set! It should keep well in the fridge for a few days, just give it another shake!

Let’s do it!

1. In the bottom of a large salad bowl, whisk all dressing ingredients together.
2. Add chilled quinoa to the dressing, stir to combine.
3. Chop the green beans in half.
4. Toss green beans, chickpeas, and cucumber with dressed quinoa.
5. Add half the feta cheese to the salad, and lightly toss.
6. Top salad with remaining feta cheese and extra fresh dill if desired.

This recipe is for about two servings, lightly dressed. I had some for lunch, and served the rest with dinner. If you’ll be scaling the salad up to make a larger batch, and won’t be eating it right away, I’d recommend making your dressing separate rather than building the salad on top of it.

If you try this recipe out, don’t forget to post a rating and comment!

I’d love to see your pictures on Instagram too! Tag @a_toastedcrumb!