Feta Walnut Bean Salad

Crisp tender beans drizzled with tangy Dijon Vinaigrette, scattered with crunchy walnuts, salty feta and fresh herbs. How can this Feta Walnut Bean Salad be this easy yet this delicious?!

I’ve recently been blessed by multiple friends with an abundance of produce. Totally tickled by their generosity because the hubby and I are both veggie lovers. But it’s a race to preserve or eat them while they’re at their peak. With the myriad of options available, these beautiful wax beans made it to my table first. That’s because my friend Jan included this recipe with the beans from her beautiful garden. Mucho gracias Jan!

Truth be told, I hadn’t intended to blog this Feta Walnut Bean Salad recipe. I just wanted to throw this together for lunch. But once I started arranging the salad, it looked so pretty I had to take a picture. Then we tasted the salad and my mind was made up. Everyone that enjoys a fresh and flavorful vegetable salad needs this recipe!

Prepping the Beans

If you’ve never steamed or blanched beans, followed by an ice bath, it’s super easy. First blanch the beans (cook briefly) in boiling water until just crisp tender. If you have a steamer basket, which is what I used, that works perfectly too. Then dump the beans into a large bowl of ice water to stop the cooking process. Once they have cooled, drain the beans and pat dry.

My Tweaks

Necessity is the mother of invention as they say. That means I made changes based on what I had on hand or my personal preferences. Here are the changes I made from the original recipe.

• I used wax beans because that’s what I had. The initial recipe used green beans. A combination of both would look awesome.

• Instead of 1/4 cup lemon juice I used 2 tablespoons lemon juice and 2 tablespoons white balsamic vinegar. I liked how the balsamic vinegar balanced out the tartness of the lemon juice. But you could use just lemon juice for a nice tart dressing.

• I swapped in feta for blue cheese. But use whichever you like best.

• Instead of putting all of the herbs in the Dijon vinaigrette, I put 1 tablespoon of basil in the dressing and then sprinkled a final flourish of snipped chives and a few small basil leaves over the assembled salad.

The final result was sublime!

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Feta Walnut Bean Salad

Feta Walnut Bean Salad features crisp-tender beans drizzled with a tangy Dijon Dressing and an artful scattering of walnut, feta, and chives.

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Total Time: 25 minutes minutes

Servings: 4

Author: adapted from How Sweet Eats Green Bean Salad

Ingredients

Salad

• 1 pound fresh green beans
• ⅓ cup toasted walnuts chopped
• ⅓ cup crumbled feta or blue cheese, if preferred

Dijon Dressing

• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 2 tbsp white balsamic vinegar
• 2 tablespoons dijon mustard
• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
• pinch of salt
• freshly cracked black pepper
• 1 tablespoon fresh chopped herbs, plus additional for garnish, if desired chives, basil, etc

Instructions

Salad

• Start by blanching the green beans. Prepare an ice bath – fill a large bowl with ice and cold water.
• Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Once boiling, add the green beans and cook for 3 to 4 minutes. Strain, then immediately transfer the beans to the ice bath. Let them chill in the bath for 5 minutes. Pat the beans dry with a paper towel.
• Place the beans on the plate and give them a light sprinkle of salt and pepper. Drizzle on the dijon dressing. Top with the crumbled feta and walnuts. Sprinkle with additional chopped fresh herbs if desired.

Dijon Dressing

• Combine ingredients in a salad shaker or jar with a tight fitting lid and shake until well blended.