If you have 10 minutes and a lot of beans sitting around in your kitchen, you can make this Puerto Rican Bean Salad. The best part is that you can use your favorite types of beans and just make the dressing combination of this recipe.
As a Puerto Rican, we grow up knowing and eating beans, so it’s no surprise that I love this Puerto Rican Bean Salad. Trust me, we make a lot of bean recipes like the stewed beans in a Puerto Rican style and the Puerto Rican yellow rice and beans.
This is a recipe that, when you eat it, it doesn’t feel heavy but super fresh. I added some of the best beans like pink beans, black beans, and the creamy butter beans. Trust me, the butter beans make a difference here.
Now the mix of beans is not what is special in this recipe, many other cultures use the same combo to make this salad. But the little dressing we make with oil, vinegar, garlic, salt, and pepper is the difference.
Now this is great to make for any special occasion like a party or celebration. You can make it as an appetizer, a salad, or a dip to eat with chips.
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Recipe Ingredients
- Beans- I used the common beans like pink and black. But instead of the garbanzos which people tend to use, I added butter beans.
- Vegetables- You need canned corn and red pimientos, but you can also use red peppers. Onion, green pepper, and cilantro.
- Dressing mix- I make a mix with oil, vinegar, garlic paste, and salt and pepper.
How to Make Puerto Rican Bean Salad
- Photo 1: Drain all the liquid from the canned vegetables.
- Photo 2: Rinse the vegetables and let them drain all the excess water.
- Photo 3: Roughly chop the cilantro, onion, pimientos, and green pepper. You can cut these as big or as small as you like.
- Photo 4: Add all the ingredients to a bowl and mix.
Recipe Tips
- Grainy look. Since the recipe uses butter beans, which easily break, the beans will have a grainy look. But don’t worry because it doesn’t have a grainy feel.
- Refrigerate. You can serve this immediately after making. But I feel like the beans absorb more of the flavor of the dressing when they have time to sit in it.
- Add more veggies or fruits. You can add basically anything you like. For veggies, canned carrots and peas or beets are perfect. As fruits, you can add a chopped mango or an avocado.
More Quick Salad Recipes
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Puerto Rican Bean Salad
Ingredients
- 4 twigs fresh cilantro
- ½ white onion
- ½ green pepper
- 4 ounces red pimientos
- 1 can pink beans
- 1 can black beans
- 1 can butter beans *see notes
- 1 can corn
- ¼ cup oil
- 2 tablespoons vinegar
- ½ teaspoon garlic paste
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
Instructions
- Chop the cilantro into small pieces. Peel the onion and cut it into small cubes. Cut the green peppers and pimientos into small cubes as well. Set aside.
- Open the cans of beans and corn and remove all the liquid that comes in. Rinse the beans and let them drain.
- In a big bowl, add the beans, cilantro, onion, green and red pepper, salt, pepper, garlic, oil, and vinegar. Mix and refrigerate or enjoy immediately. Buen provecho.
Recipe Notes
- Butter beans- A lot of people add garbanzos to this recipe, but I like to use butter beans. Because I find butter beans to be softer. But also keep in mind that the softness makes them break more easily.
- Vegetables- You can add more vegetables like tomatoes or avocados.
- Storage- Keep in an airtight container so the beans don’t dry out for no more than 5 days in the fridge.
Nutrition
*The nutrition information is automatically calculated, so this is only an approximation.
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