Bohnensalat, German Bean Salad with Savory
Bohnensalat is the tart, mustard-sharp bean salad that turns up at German gatherings beside the potato salad, dressed with vinegar rather than the mayonnaise its American cousins lean on. The defining note is savory, known in German as Bohnenkraut, the bean herb, peppery and specific and worth seeking out. Two things make the salad: dressing the beans while the green ones are still warm, so they absorb the vinegar and mustard instead of shrugging it off, and giving the whole bowl time to sit, which softens the raw onion and marries everything. It keeps for days and travels well, which is exactly what a potluck salad is supposed to do.
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups Cannellini beans, cooked and drained
- 8 oz Green beans, trimmed and cut into 1 inch pieces
- 1/2 whole Red onions, finely diced
- 3 tbsp White wine vinegar
- 1 tbsp Dijon mustard
- 1 tsp Dried savory
- 3 tbsp Flat-leaf parsley, chopped
- 1/2 tsp Black peppercorns, freshly ground
Method
- Boil the green beans in unsalted water until just crisp-tender, about 4 minutes, then drain and run them under cold water. Shocking them cold stops the cooking at once, which keeps them bright green and snappy instead of drab and soft.
- Whisk the vinegar, mustard, and savory together in the serving bowl. The mustard is doing real work here: it emulsifies the vinegar into a dressing thick enough to cling with no oil at all, while the savory, the herb Germans call Bohnenkraut, is the one flavor that marks this as a bean salad and not a generic one.
- Stir the raw onion into the dressing and let it sit for a few minutes. Soaking the onion in the acid before the beans go in tames its raw bite and half-pickles it, so it seasons the salad rather than overpowering it.
- Fold in the cannellini and green beans while the green beans are still warm, then add the parsley and black pepper. Warm beans drink up a dressing far better than cold ones, so dressing them now is what gets the flavor inside.
- Let the salad rest at least 20 minutes, or up to a day in the fridge. Time is an ingredient: the beans soften into the sharp dressing and the flavors round out, which is why this is a dish you make ahead.
Nutrition
Estimated per serving: 180 calories, 9 g protein, 8 g fiber, 130 mg sodium. Computed from USDA FoodData Central reference values for the main ingredients. This is an approximation, not a laboratory measurement. How these are computed.
Cost per serving is estimated from US national-average retail prices for cheap staple forms, using BLS dried-bean prices and USDA produce prices. Prices vary by store and season, so treat it as a guide, not a receipt. How this is computed.
