This dish was cooked up (pun intended) for a work potluck I had. I wanted a dish that didn’t take too much time and effort, since I would put it together the day of, maybe even the night before. And it needed to be something that made a lot, to feed a lot of people, but on a penny budget.
In comes my old best friends, beans, to the rescue! Beans are delightful, cheap, and filling. They come in endless variety too, so when you put several kinds together you get a healthy, hearty, and also pretty dish.
This is a very easily customizable adaptation of your typical “three-bean” salad, in that I simply added an extra type of beans. Here I used canned, but you can slash the cost even further by starting with dried beans, and cooking them in a crock pot on low overnight to rehydrate. Then drain and refrigerate until needed.
Ingredients:
- Four cans of different bean types. I used: Black Beans, Cut Green Beans, Dark Red Kidney, and Great Northern. Pick an assorted variety of colors for best effect.
- 1/2 red onion, sliced thinly
- 1 bell pepper, diced (or 1 cup of a mix of colors)
- 1/3 cup vegetable, olive, or canola oil
- 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar (you could use red wine, or plain white vinegar as well)
- 2 tbsp X’awaash (or any other ethnic seasoning) I got this as a gift from a friend, for which I am so grateful! It smells so exotic, and truly makes dishes sing with unique Somali flavor.
Step 1: Open all the cans, put the beans in a colander and rinse them several times with cold water. This helps remove some of the excess sodium and any preservatives that might have been in the canned juices. Mix in a large bowl with the peppers and onion.
Step 2: Combine the vinegar and oil, and pour over the mixture. Add the spices, and mix everything up.
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