Cannellini Beans Salad

This simple cannellini beans salad is quick and simple to prepare and will keep for a few days in the fridge. This salad will be perfect as an accompaniment to roasted meats or grilled fish. It will also be a great addition to a mezze platter. 

Inspired by a recipe in Sabrina Ghayour’s Persiana, this will appear on your table again and again. The gentle nuttiness of the tahini dressing is offset perfectly by the sharpness of the red onion. This cannellini beans salad is a dish that makes you forget that there is no meat on your plate. 

If you do not have cannellini beans in the press, this will work well with borlotti beans or simply with chickpeas.

Ingredients

• 1 large can of cannellini beans 
• 1 lemon
• 1/2 red onion
• 3 tablespoons of light tahini
• 1 tablespoon of rice vinegar or cider vinegar
• 1 large bunch of parsley
• 1 clove of garlic
• 1 teaspoons of smoked paprika

Method

• First cut your onion in half, peel it and slice the half you will use for this dish as finely as you can. 
• Pour the juice of half a lemon over the sliced onions and let this rest for an hour.
• In a bowl, mix your tahini, paprika, vinegar, grated garlic and the juice of the other half of the lemon.
• Mix it until it’s a smooth texture. If the dressing needs loosening, pour a few drops of water at a time into the bowl. This will make the mixture more liquid. Do go easy on the water though as you need this dressing quite thick. It will be roughly the consistency of yoghurt, creamy but not too thick. 
• Plate your drained cannellini beans.
• Taste the dressing and adjust the seasoning if required. 
• Pour a few tablespoons of the dressing over the beans and toss gently.
• Sprinkle the onions and parsley on top.