Italian Green Bean Salad

Last updated on May 24th, 2017

For years, Anita has been putting together a summer salad with green beans, tomatoes and red onion. It’s an old family recipe. She calls it “Italian Green Bean Salad” in honor of her father, who’s an old Italian. It’s a delicious, nutritious summer treat, and reasonably low-carb.

This summer, with a bumper crop of beans, cucumbers, hot peppers and tomatoes growing in our backyard garden, we were looking forward to making salads with the freshest, most organic of ingredients.

Then blossom-end rot hit the tomatoes. We still have cherry tomatoes coming in, but the big ones are in trouble.  So I walked down to the Wednesday afternoon farmer’s market and bought a bag of tomatoes.

Anita says she can prevent the end rot next year by adding calcium to the soil.

Even tomatoes need good nutrition!

This salad is best served immediately, but it does hold up well in the refrigerator for a day or so. It’s a recipe that is easy to expand, depending on how many people you need to feed.

Italian Green Bean Salad

Makes four (or six small) servings

Ingredients

• 2 cups fresh green beans, cut into 1-inch segments
• 2 medium tomatoes, chopped
• 1 medium red onion, sliced
• 1 quarter-cup (or to taste) extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 eighth-cup (or to taste) red wine vinegar
• 1 teaspoon (or to taste) oregano
• 1 teaspoon (or to taste) basil

Preparation

1. Steam the cut green beans for 4 minutes. Allow to cool.
2. In a large bowl, mix beans, onion and tomato.
3. Add oil, vinegar and seasonings.
4. Gently mix with large fork.

Nutrition

Figuring four servings from the above recipe, here’s the per serving breakdown:

• Calories: 164
• Total carbs: 10g
• Fiber: 3.5g
• Net carbs: 6.5g
• Fat: 14g

The beans and tomatoes are good sources of vitamins A and C, and the beans also provide significant calcium, iron and potassium.  Olive oil is reputed to be strongly anti-inflammatory.