Every year I grow green beans in my garden and like every gardener knows, sometimes you end up with a lot of produce! I decided to try a favorite salad of mine with green beans instead and this Greek green bean salad could not have turned out better!
I based this recipe off of my Greek chickpea salad recipe. The olives were increased a little because, you know, olives are delicious. I also used grape tomatoes because that is what I had on hand. Hopefully if you already love chickpea salad you will love this green bean salad as well.
The variety of green beans I grow and used in this recipe are called case knife beans. They are a snap bean, just like green beans, but they are flat instead of round. Any snap bean, or green bean such as yellow green beans or purple green beans, can be used in this recipe.
Variations to the Greek Green Bean Salad recipe:
- Dice a medium tomato and use in place of the small grape or cherry tomatoes.
- Swap black olives for kalamata olives. If you don’t like olives, try capers.
- To serve as a main dish, add protein. This salad will make 2 lunch sized portions with the addition of 1 cup chickpeas, white beans, or butter beans.
- Instead of the red wine vinaigrette and feta cheese, try this lemon feta vinaigrette.
- The mustard is the emulsifier in the dressing. You can replace it with another emulsifier, such as another mustard (stone ground) or mayo.
- 1 ½ cups diced green beans or snap beans
- ½ cup diced cucumber
- ½ cup halved grape or cherry tomatoes
- ⅓ cup sliced black olives
- ¼ cup minced red onion
- ¼ cup crumbled feta
- 2 garlic clove, minced
- 2 TBS each: olive oil and red wine vinegar
- 1 tsp Dijon mustard
- ¼ tsp each: kosher salt and coarse black pepper
- Blanch the green beans in boiling water for 4-6 minutes, or until tender crisp. Drain well. Alternatively you can serve the green beans raw in this salad if you prefer.
- In a bowl combine the green beans, cucumber, tomatoes, black olives, red onion and feta.
- In another small bowl whisk together all the dressing ingredients.
- Pour the dressing over the green bean mixture and toss to coat.
