Italian White Bean Salad with Salsa Verde
MAKES 4 SERVINGS • PREP TIME: 10 minutes • COOK TIME: not applicable
Often when I’m developing a recipe, I think about texture as much as taste. That is the case here, where there’s a creamy/crunchy thing going between the white beans and the radishes. This is the kind of light fare Italians are known for and that I commonly found served up as antipasti as I traveled across that country. Olives, scallions, mint, and parsley round out the salad, which is tossed in a traditional Italian salsa verde. Radishes, which create a great mouthfeel, are a brassica, which means they have lots of brain-boosting properties including regulating blood sugar.
2 cups cooked cannellini beans or 1 (15-ounce) can, rinsed
Freshly squeezed lemon juice
Sea salt
1/2 cup Signora Francini’s Salsa Verde (below)
6 radishes, quartered and cut into 1/4 inch pieces
12 kalamata olives, pitted and sliced
1/2 cup coarsely chopped
fresh parsley
2 scallions, sliced
2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint
In a large bowl, stir together the cannellini beans, a spritz of lemon, and a pinch of salt. Add the salsa verde and stir to coat the beans. Add the radishes, olives, parsley, scallions, and mint and toss. Taste; you may want to give it a squeeze of lemon or another pinch or two of salt. Serve.
COOK'S NOTE: Cannellini beans will soak up the salsa verde, so if you want to store this salad in the refrigerator, perk it up with another teaspoon of dressing or a spritz of lemon.
Salsa Verde
MAKES ABOUT 1 CUP • PREP TIME: 5 minutes • COOK TIME: not applicable
2 cups coarsely chopped fresh parsley leaves
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
4 anchovy fillets, rinsed
1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
4 teaspoons capers, rinsed
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Put all the ingredients except the olive oil in a food processor and blend for about a minute, until finely chopped. With the food processor running, drizzle in the olive oil and process until the sauce is smooth.
Reprinted with permission from The Healthy Mind Cookbook Copyright © 2015 by Rebecca Katz with Mat Edelson, Ten Speed Press, a division of the Crown Publishing Group, Berkeley, CA.