green beans

9 Comments June 28, 2025 terrie gura

When the heat goes up, my appetite goes down. Like, waaaay down. And that means I’ve barely been hungry at all this week, as the afternoon highs got stuck around 97° F for five days in a row with 70% humidity as the norm. It has been too hot to weed my flower beds, too hot to walk the dog, and definitely too hot to cook. It’s brutal, and I know that much of the U.S. has been dealing with the same as climate change has altered what summer looks like— probably forever.

But at some point, we’ve gotta eat, right? I’ve put some new ideas into practice to ensure that we have something of substance, without me having to stand at a hot stove. Taking a cue from my blog buddy, Michelle, who endured the vicious summer heat of California’s Coachella Valley for too many years, I have found it helpful to do my cooking in the morning hours and then serve up the food as cool meals in the evenings. This has proven to be beneficial for more than one reason, as I often find myself less motivated at the end of the workday; my brain has run dry of decision-making ability. Getting meals done early has saved my sanity!

This variation on three-bean salad has even more texture than my usual, with crunchy bits of celery, bell pepper and red onion, the zesty bite of minced garlic, creamy kidney and cannellini beans, and a big punch of dilly-dilly flavor, courtesy of chopped spicy pickles and fresh summer dill. The fresh green beans have a nice “snap,” and the canned beans provide terrific fiber for a healthy gut, along with enough protein to carry me through this god-awful heat spell. Let’s get into it!

This recipe also happens to be easy on the grocery budget.

Par for the course, my inspiration for this recipe came from a desire to get rid of random jars in my refrigerator. We have had a bevy of leftover pickles taking up space after my husband’s son, Alex, visited a few months ago from Hungary. Alex loves dill pickles (especially spicy ones), and I always pick up a few options for easy snacking when he’s with us. Alex is very polite and doesn’t like to consume the whole contents of the jars, so he leaves them for us, which means that they get shoved to the back of the fridge until I get tired of moving them around. For this salad, I chopped up the remains of two kinds of pickles and I also used the kosher dill liquid in the dressing.

This dressing would be terrific on a greens-based salad, too.

The balance of the dressing recipe is Dijon mustard, a spoonful of sugar, dill and celery seeds, and a healthy drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. Salt and pepper to taste, plus a splash of water, and that’s done.

The dill and celery seeds release more flavor after soaking in the dressing.

The green beans were the only ingredient in this salad that required cooking— thankfully, we only needed to have the stove on for about 10 minutes— so I got that going with a pinch of baking soda in a pot of barely-boiling water. The alkaline nature of the soda helps preserve the color of the green beans, and a shock of ice water at the end of cooking also helps with color retention.

Test a bean or two for doneness after about five minutes. They should be tender but still give a little resistance to the bite.

This process, called “blanching,” takes me back to my grandmother’s kitchen, where I learned so many basic lessons of cooking— including blanching vegetables for freezing and canning— when I was barely tall enough to reach the stove. Gram would have loved this three-bean salad, especially the use of the leftover pickle liquid. Like so many people who lived through the Great Depression, she used every scrap, drop, peeling, stem and leaf that could be used. These are still important lessons today, and I aim to make her proud every time I step into my own kitchen.

I’m not embarrassed to admit that I tasted this 13 times while making it. 😁

Assembling the salad is easy. Give the dressing another good whisking before you pour it over the main ingredients, and fold it gently to avoid breaking up the canned beans. Add more fresh dill than you think is necessary, as the fine fronds will disperse a great deal when you fold it in. This freshness adds something special to the salad, but if you cannot find it in your supermarket or farm stand, a teaspoon of dried dill leaves will work in a pinch; add them to the dressing ingredients instead.

So there you have it— a three-bean salad, inspired by Alex’s leftover pickles, bringing loads of flavor to the table with ingredients that will satisfy, even when it feels too damn hot to eat. Make this early in the day and let the salad chill in the fridge several hours before enjoying. It keeps well for about a week, and you’ll want to remove it from the fridge for about 20 minutes when you’re ready to serve so that the olive oil softens from its chilled state.

Dilly-dilly Three Bean Salad

Servings: 8
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 6 minutes
Difficulty: Average
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Spicy dill pickles and fresh dill lend a tangy twist to classic three bean salad. Use the pickle juice in the dressing, and make it early in the day so that the flavors have time to mingle in the fridge.

Ingredients

3/4 pound fresh green beans, trimmed and cut into uniform small pieces
1 tsp. kosher salt
1/4 tsp. baking soda (optional, for color retention)
1 can light red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 cup chopped red bell pepper
1/2 cup chopped celery
1/2 cup diced red onion
1/2 cup chopped dill pickles
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
3 Tbsp. dill pickle juice
1 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar
1 Tbsp. cold water
About 2 tsp. Dijon mustard
1 tsp. cane sugar
1/2 tsp. celery seed (or combo with dill seed, if you have it)
Salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup fresh dill, chopped

Note: I used a combination of pickles in my salad. Be as creative as you dare, subbing in spicy pickles or even other pickled vegetables as the mood strikes! Take note of the sodium in your pickled ingredients so that you can adjust salt to taste without overdoing it.

Directions

Prepare an ice bath in a large bowl. Bring a pot of water to low boil over medium-high heat. Stir in salt and baking soda, then add green beans. Simmer for 6 to 7 minutes, until beans are slightly tender but still bright green. Transfer beans to the ice bath and rest at least 5 minutes, then drain in a colander.
Make the dressing while the beans are blanching. Combine pickle juice, vinegar, cold water, Dijon, sugar and celery seed in a measuring glass. Whisk vigorously while drizzling olive oil into the glass, creating an emulsion. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Blot the green beans with a towel to remove excess moisture. Combine in a large bowl with the drained canned beans, vegetables and chopped pickles.
Pour dressing over the salad ingredients, and fold gently with a spatula or wooden spoon to avoid breaking the tender canned beans. Add salt and pepper as needed. Fold in dill and refrigerate until ready to serve. This keeps well for up to a week.

9 Comments July 21, 2021 terrie gura

There is nothing new under the sun, as they say, and when I start to feel flummoxed over what side dishes to make for summer meals, one of the best things I can do is revisit a classic and modernize it for my grown-up palate.

About the same period of time I became enthralled with the immense variety of baked beans at my great grandmother’s Fourth of July celebrations, there was a popular salad showing up on everyone’s dinner table. It might have been called a three-bean salad, including cut green beans, dark red kidney beans and little round garbanzo beans, which my dad always called “ceci beans.” But once in a while, yellow wax beans would also be in the mix, technically making it a four-bean salad but with generally the same flavors. This salad was often purchased ready-made, and as I recall, it was a popular item in the deli department of the grocery store where I worked as a young adult. The main thing I remember about it, besides its ubiquitous presence, is that it was sweet. Too sweet, in my opinion. I have no problem with a touch of sweetness in a salad dressing, but if it’s too sweet, it counters the benefit of eating vegetables.

So this summer, I have created an updated version of this otherwise good-for-you salad, shifting the flavor profile from sweet to zesty and herbaceous. The sugar in the recipe is nominal, and I’ve amped up the other side of the salad flavors with a hefty addition of minced garlic and a good bit of chopped fresh parsley and basil. The salad is quick and easy to make, as it relies somewhat on canned beans, and I’ve used ready-to-go fresh green beans to save time. If you’re lucky enough to have garden-fresh green beans, well, that would be awesome.

Ingredients

3/4 lb. fresh green beans, trimmed and cut into 1 1/2 inch pieces

15 oz. can dark red kidney beans, drained and rinsed

15 oz. can garbanzo (ceci) beans, drained and rinsed

1/2 cup sweet onion, finely diced

1/2 cup green bell pepper, finely diced

1/2 cup red bell pepper, finely diced

3 large cloves garlic, finely minced

1 handful fresh Italian parsley, chopped

Small handful fresh basil leaves, chopped

Dressing ingredients

1/4 cup red wine vinegar

2 tsp. Dijon mustard* (see notes)

2 tsp. cane sugar

1/2 tsp. celery seed

1/2 tsp. garlic pepper seasoning

2 Tbsp. cold water

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

*Notes

In lieu of regular Dijon mustard, I used the recently-discontinued Honey Pale Ale mustard from Trader Joe’s. Does anyone besides me have a gripe about how they pick and choose which products to keep? If you happen to have a jar of it, I think it’s terrific in salad dressings. Otherwise, just use regular Dijon.

Why, Trader Joe’s? I love this mustard. 😦

Instructions

Here’s a little trick I’ve learned for retaining bright color; add 1/2 tsp. baking soda to the simmering water before blanching vegetables.
Rinse the canned beans under cold water to remove the unpleasant “goo,” and then drain thoroughly.
To pretty up the green beans, I’ve trimmed the tips and cut them into three pieces, each about 1 1/2 inches long.
Carefully drop the green beans into the boiling water for about six minutes.
Scoop the blanched beans out of the water and drop them into an ice bath. This will abruptly stop the cooking process, and help retain the bright color.
If I had celery in the fridge this day, I would have added 1/2 cup of that, too!
This is the easy part; pour the dressing over the salad veggies and give it a gentle toss.
Add salt and pepper to taste and toss with the fresh chopped parsley and basil.
Hello, summer flavor! 🙂

Heat a pot of water to a gentle boil. Add a generous pinch of kosher salt to the water, along with a half teaspoon of baking soda, which will help the beans retain their bright color.
Make dressing for the salad; combine all ingredients except the olive oil. Whisk in olive oil gradually to create an emulsion. Salt and pepper to taste.
Spoon the trimmed green beans into the simmering water and cook for about 6 minutes, or just until beans are tender enough to bite. Immediately spoon the cooked beans into a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking process. Drain beans to remove excess water.
Combine green beans, canned beans, peppers, onions and garlic in a large mixing bowl.
Pour in dressing and toss gently to combine. Adjust salt and pepper to taste. Add fresh herbs and toss again. Chill salad several hours and toss lightly to redistribute dressing just before serving. The olive oil in the dressing will solidify in the fridge, so plan to remove the salad at least ten minutes before serving for best presentation.