Dense Bean Salad

Italian Dense Bean Salad is an easy meal prep recipe you can make for lunch all week long. It’s loaded with chickpeas, kidney beans, rotisserie chicken, turkey pepperoni, mozzarella cheese, cucumber and cherry tomatoes all tossed in our homemade Italian salad dressing. 

Loaded with fiber and protein, this Italian dense bean salad has a tasty combination of flavors and it’s a great meal prep lunch salad to last you all week.

Why You Will Love This Recipe

• Flavor. This dense bean salad has a great combo of flavors. The Italian salad dressing that we toss it all together with is one of our favorites. 
• Meal Prep. Great meal prep salad that is simple to make for lunch all week long. 
• Share Worthy.  This is another great salad for potlucks, cookouts, and special occasions. If you need to take a salad to a potluck, this would be a good one to take!

Dense Bean Salad Recipe Ingredients

• Chickpeas AND Kidney Beans.  We use canned garbanzo beans and kidney beans. We like to use low-sodium or no sodium beans the best. You can also make our home cooked chickpeas to use. They taste far superior to canned chickpeas. 
• Chicken. We used store-bought unseasoned rotisserie chicken for this salad, but you can also use poached chicken or grilled chicken if you like.
• Turkey Pepperoni.  Turkey pepperoni adds a delicious flavor to this salad.
• Red Onion. A little red onion for flavor.
• Artichoke Hearts. Use canned artichoke hearts rather than marinated artichoke hearts.
• Black Olives.  Olives added for flavor.
• Pepperoncini. We add just a little diced pepperonicini to add to the Italian flavors in this salad.
• Cucumber. Use either English or Persian cucumbers for this salad. The peels are thin and there’s few seeds. There’s no need to peel either of them. If you use garden cucumbers, you’ll want to peel them and scrape the seeds out with a spoon because they both can be bitter tasting. 
• Red Bell Pepper. We add red bell peppers to the mix.
• Mozzarella Cheese.  We add grated mozzarella cheese to this salad. We prefer adding grated mozzarella cheese, but you can use small mozzarella balls instead if you like.
• Fresh Parsley. Toss is finely chopped Italian parsley.
• Salad Dressing. We use our Creamy Italian Salad Dressing to toss this salad with.

Find printable recipe with the measurements below.

Variations

• Add-Ins. Add in sun-dried tomatoes, or use cannellini beans instead of kidney beans. You can also use kalamata olives instead of black olives.
• Dressing. Swap out the dressing that we use for this recipe and try one of our other salad dressings, like our Zesty Italian Salad Dressing, Mediterranean Salad Dressing,  Everyday Creamy Vinaigrette, Lemon Mustard Vinaigrette, or our Apple Cider Vinegar Dressing.

How To Make Italian Dense Bean Salad

• Blend Dressing. Measure the ingredients into a blender or NutriBullet and blend the ingredients. When you emulsify a dressing, it keeps it from separating so quickly. We like to blend the ingredients for this dressing rather than just whisking it.
• Prep Ingredients. Drain and rinse the canned chickpeas and cannellini beans in a fine mesh colander. Slice the tomatoes in half, chop the cooked chicken, and dice the cucumbers, onion, red bell pepper, pepperoncini, olives and fresh herbs.
• Toss Salad. Put all of the salad ingredients in a large bowl. Drizzle the dressing over the ingredients and toss. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.
• Store Salad. Store salad in an airtight container in the refrigerator. If the salad is properly stored, it should last up to 5 days.

Tips For Making The Best Dense Bean Salad

1. Chop Ingredients.  Chop the ingredients into similar sizes. This is a salad that you can really eat with a spoon rather than a fork.
2. Use A Large Bowl For Tossing. Use a large bowl that has room for tossing. You can use the same bowl to mix and serve with, unless you’re distributing the salad into individual serving containers for a convenient grab-and-go lunch or snack.  A pair of serving spoons is always a nice touch and will help you to gently toss the salad without smashing the ingredients. 
3. Dressing Salad. Drizzle dressing over the salad and toss to make sure the ingredients are lightly coated with the dressing. Add more dressing if you like the beans to be more marinated in dressing.
4. Taste-Test. Taste test and adjust the seasoning by adding more herbs, cheese, or salt and black pepper if you like.

More Bean Salad Recipes

• Greek Dense Bean Salad
• Mediterranean Bean Salad
• Italian White Bean Salad
• White Bean Quinoa Salad
• Mexican Bean Salad
• Quinoa Black Bean Salad
• Curried Chickpea Salad

Continue to Content

Print

No Ratings

Dense Bean Salad

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 5 minutes

Total Time 20 minutes

Italian Dense Bean Salad is an easy meal prep recipe you can make for lunch all week long. It's loaded with chickpeas, kidney beans, rotisserie chicken, turkey pepperoni, mozzarella cheese, cucumber and cherry tomatoes all tossed in our homemade Italian salad dressing. 

Ingredients

• 1 15-ounce can Garbanzo Beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 15-ounce can Kidney Beans, rinsed and drained
• 2 cups cooked chicken, chopped
• 1/2 medium English cucumber, diced (or 4-5 Persian cucumbers)
• 1 red bell pepper, cored and diced
• 2 cups cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
• 3/4 cup black olives, diced
• 1/4 cup red onion, diced
• 1/4 cup fresh Italian parsley, minced

For The Salad Dressing

Toggle ingredient group

• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup red wine vinegar
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• 1-1/4 teaspoons dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon dried parsley
• 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1/4 teaspoon dried basil
• 1/4 teaspoon celery seeds
• 1 clove garlic, finely minced
• 3 tablespoons Parmesan cheese
• 2-3 tablespoons real mayonnaise
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Instructions

1. For the dressing, measure the ingredients into a blender or NutriBullet and blend for 5-10 seconds or longer to break the parmesan cheese down and the dressing is creamy.
2.  Put all of the salad ingredients in a large bowl. Drizzle the dressing over the ingredients and toss. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.
3. Store salad in an airtight container in the refrigerator. If the salad is properly stored, it should last up to 5 days.

Notes

Variations

• Add-Ins. Add in sun-dried tomatoes,
• Substitutions. Use cannellini beans instead of kidney beans. You can also use kalamata olives instead of black olives.
• Dressing. Swap out the dressing that we use for this recipe and try one of our other salad dressings, like our Zesty Italian Salad Dressing, Mediterranean Salad Dressing,Everyday Creamy Vinaigrette, Lemon Mustard Vinaigrette, or our Apple Cider Vinegar Dressing.

Nutrition Information:

Yield:

8

Serving Size:

1
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 417Total Fat: 29gSaturated Fat: 6gUnsaturated Fat: 23gCholesterol: 64mgSodium: 394mgCarbohydrates: 19gFiber: 6gSugar: 4gProtein: 22g

theharvestkitchen.com attempts to provide accurate information, however, this nutritional information is provided as a courtesy and is an estimate only. The nutritional information provided comes from online sources and calculations. See full disclaimer on About page.