Roasted green bean salad takes green beans to a whole new level!
At the moment, the market stalls around Fethiye are just teeming with beans.
Huge mounds of colourful barbunya pods contrasting against piles of super fresh green beans.
We just can’t not buy them. And that’s how this roasted green bean salad recipe came about.
Roasted Green Bean Salad Recipe
It’s seasonal eating again.
We were on the Sunday market in Çalış and it seemed as though every other stall had stacks of green beans – and because they’re in their prime, the price was great, too.
Without thinking, I asked the lady on the stall for a kilo!
When there’s only two of you in the house, a kilo of green beans is quite a lot to get through.
After making our staple Turkish green beans recipe, zeytinyağlı taze fasulye, there was still a rather hefty amount left.
A typically hot summer has seen us munching our way through a whole array of salads such as our tasty chickpea salad and kısır.
It only seemed natural, as I stared into the fridge wondering what to do with the green beans looking back at me, to come up with a light green bean salad.
Because the green beans are so fresh at the moment, they’re crisp and sweet even when raw.
But raw or steamed wasn’t really tempting the taste buds. Roasted green beans were more what I had in mind. And it worked!
How To Trim Green Beans
So, for this green bean salad recipe, we first of all need to trim the beans.
If you’re using frozen supermarket green beans, this will already have been done for you.
For those of us using fresh green beans, we need to trim them.
This is very easy.
After washing them, line the beans up with the all the stems pointing the same way. Then just take a large, sharp knife and chop off those ends in one go.
Discard the ends and then cut your beans into pieces 3-4cm long.
Then we’re just going to scatter them on an oiled baking tray and roast them until they start to colour.
Our little extra that we love to add to roasted green beans: after a few minutes, we add a few slices of garlic to the tray and place back in the oven. The garlic will soften and sweeten.
So, now we’ve got our prepared and roasted green beans and garlic, let’s make our light, Mediterranean green bean salad.
Green Bean And Tomato Salad With White Cheese And Walnuts
This is a salad that celebrates both seasonal food and light Mediterranean flavours.
It’s not just the green beans in their prime right now, so are pembe domates. This translates as ‘pink tomatoes.’
They are, however, anything but pink once you cut into them. Beautifully sweet and red.
In the recipe, we use Turkish white cheese (beyaz peynir) but if you’re elsewhere and not in the proximity of any place selling Turkish food products, feta cheese will do the job.
The crumbled walnuts over the top add both flavour and texture.
Once you are ready to serve your green bean salad, you can drizzle your lemon, olive oil and garlic dressing over the top.
We love our dressing to be really tangy so we use less oil and more lemon and vinegar.
Most salad dressings have a 3:1 ratio of olive oil to lemon so it’s up to you how you prefer your flavours.
We just love the summer colours in this bowl of green bean salad and it’s already a firm favourite in our household.
As you can see from the photos in this article, this is not just a one off.
And if you’re worried about calories or fat content, we actually prefer the low fat versions of Turkish white cheese. The texture is much firmer.
So, not only do we have a bowl of Mediterranean summer colour; our green bean salad is also lighter and healthier.
Easy Green Bean Salad Recipe With White Cheese & Tomato
Ingredients
For The Green Bean Salad
- 250 grams green beans washed, trimmed & cut into thirds
- 100 grams white cheese or feta cheese
- 150 grams tomatoes fresh & ripe
- 1 small red onion cut into half moons
- 1 handful walnuts broken into smaller pieces
- 2 cloves garlic peeled & thinly sliced
For The Dressing
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 clove garlic peeled & crushed
- 1 lemon juiced
- 1 teaspoon vinegar
- salt & pepper to taste
Instructions
For The Green Bean Salad
- Preheat your oven to 200 degrees.
- Meanwhile, scatter your green beans onto a baking tray and drizzle with olive oil.
- Toss the beans around to give them a good coating and place in the oven.
- Once they're beginning to colour and bubble (around 10 minutes depending on your oven), give them another toss around to flip them over and scatter your slices of garlic over, too.
- Place back in the oven for another 5 minutes or so before removing from the heat to cool.
- Divide your tomatoes and onion between two bowls and crumble the cheese over the top.
- Now divide the green beans and garlic slices between the two bowls.
- Gently mix the green bean salad ingredients.
- Scatter broken walnut pieces over the top of your white cheese and green bean salad.
For The Green Bean Salad Dressing
- Mix all your ingredients in a ramekin bowl.
- Do a taste test and add more lemon, vinegar or oil to taste.
- Drizzle over your green bean salad just before serving.
Notes
- As with all our recipes, this white cheese, green bean and tomato salad has an approximate calorie count. If you use full fat feta cheese, there will be more calories.
- We use low fat beyaz peynir (white cheese or feta cheese) in this recipe because the cheese is harder.
- This salad works well with cherry tomatoes, as well. Also, feel free to substitute the red onion for spring onions.
- Lots of salad dressing recipes suggest a 3 to 1 olive oil to lemon ratio. Our personal taste is for a more tangy dressing so we use less oil.
- If you prefer, you can use toasted almonds for your green bean salad rather than walnuts.
- We often add a drizzle of nar ekşisi (pomegranate molasses) to our salad, along with a sprinkling of pul biber (hot red pepper flakes).
Nutrition
Afiyet Olsun!
- Although we have used Turkish ingredients, this green bean salad is not a traditional Turkish dish. We have added it to our collection of international recipes.
- If you like, you can add some nar ekşisi (pomegranate molasses) and pul biber (hot red pepper flakes) to your salad, too.
- If you would like to cook Turkish, however, you can click to view our full list of Turkish recipes.