Tonno E Fagioli (Italian Tuna And Bean Salad) Recipe

Italian bean salad is a tasty and versatile dish that's appropriate for all seasons. It's simple to make and only requires a few ingredients, so it's a great recipe for when you need a meal that saves you time without sacrificing on taste. You could whip up this dish with cannellini beans, borlotti beans (also known as cranberry beans in English), or butter beans, which are commonly used in Italy for this purpose — or really any beans you have in your pantry.

Recipe developer Michelle Bottalico has created a recipe for an Italian bean salad that features large, creamy butter beans and tuna, which is not just delicious but also full of protein. The tuna is packed in oil for more flavor, and red onion, lemon juice, salt, black pepper, and parsley add zesty freshness. While the ingredients are simple, they go together well for a lovely salad that's big on flavor.

The recipe calls for canned beans for convenience, but many Italian recipes start with dried beans. Scroll down for more information about how to use dried beans in this recipe, and why you might want to. If you're not familiar with butter beans, this is a great way to start using them. And if you're anything like us and you fall in love with their creamy, buttery texture, you'll want to remember these tips on how to build your next meal around protein-rich butter beans.

For this recipe, you will first need canned butter beans and oil-packed tuna. The other ingredients are red onion, freshly squeezed lemon juice, salt, black pepper, and fresh parsley.

Drain the beans and rinse them well. Place them in a bowl.

Add the tuna along with the oil in the cans to the bowl. Use a fork to break up any large chunks of tuna. If you prefer not to use the oil from the cans, you can dress the salad with extra virgin olive oil.

Thinly slice the red onion and add it to the bowl.

Pour in the lemon juice and season with salt and black pepper.

Stir well to mix. Taste and adjust for salt and pepper if desired.

Sprinkle the salad with fresh parsley and serve.

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This recipe is made with butter beans, a large white variety of lima bean that's especially soft and creamy. Butter beans are delicious right out of the can, but they can easily be combined with other ingredients for more flavor. As far as ways to enhance butter beans, this recipe is definitely one of them. If you'd like to experiment with other kinds of beans, however, you have plenty of options to use in this recipe.

Besides butter beans, Italians often make bean salad with cannellini beans and borlotti beans, both of which are creamy bean choices. Cannellini beans, which are smaller white beans, are easy to find in the U.S., but borlotti beans are not so common. If you can't find borlotti beans, look for cranberry beans, which is what they're called in English. So what are cranberry beans anyway? When found fresh or dried, these beans have a whitish color with attractive burgundy speckles — once cooked, though, they turn solid brown. If you can't find them, you can substitute pinto beans.

While the three above-mentioned beans may be the most common, many Italian recipes note that you can make a bean salad with any beans you like. We think the rich taste of red kidney beans would be especially delicious. Chickpeas or lentils, while not technically beans (they're legumes) would pair well with the tuna and onions in this recipe as well.

Many Italian bean salad recipes call for dried beans, and they would certainly work well in this recipe. If you want to go this route, you'll need to plan ahead, because the beans will need to be soaked and cooked first. You can substitute 1 cup of dried beans for the 2 cans of beans in this recipe. If you're using beans that are already cooked, substitute 3 cups of cooked beans, which is the volume of beans in two 15-ounce cans.

Place the dried beans in a large bowl, cover them with water by about an inch, and let them soak for 8-12 hours. Then, drain the beans and rinse them well. Place them in a pot and cover them with fresh water, again by about an inch. Bring the water to a boil, then lower it to a simmer and let the beans cook for about 45 minutes until soft.

Drain the beans again and let them cool. At this point, they will be ready to use in your recipe. We know cooking beans from scratch takes more effort, but there are reasons many people prefer to start with dried beans. You can control the amount of salt you put in the beans, as well as avoid the health concerns many have about canned foods. You can also save money, since buying dried beans, especially in bulk, is more cost-effective.

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