Serve bean salad with homemade falafels and the creamiest homemade hummus for a truly delicious lunch
Make some easy smashed potatoes, either with or without oil in the cooking process and enjoy them as the perfect accompaniment to a bean salad.
#1 A Salad Buffet
Almost no description is needed – a salad buffet’s only limited by our imaginations. I remember when I was in Australia all the way back in 1987 how amazing the buffets were. They had (according to my imagination-stroke-memory) about 20 salads all with different flavours.
And I wondered back then why we hadn’t copied that in the UK. Nowadays of course, you can find some salad buffets but they’ll never live up to my memory!
Except when they’re homemade and then they’re amazing.
Bean salad
mixed green salad (lettuce, rocket, lamb leaves, tomato, cucumber, seeds)
potato salad (boiled new potatoes in skins, finely chopped spring onion, halved cherry tomatoes, homemade pesto dressing.)
Vegan bowls are so delicious, nutritious and versatile. I could live off these. They taste different every time and are just sooo satisfying.
They’re also beautiful to look at too!
Take a good deep bowl and place a layer of green leaves of your choice on the bottom. Lettuce, spinach, mixed leaves, rocket or lamb leaves all go well; it’s a matter of preference.
Next, choose some wholemeal rice, black rice, wild rice or quinoa to put in half the bowl.
Place the bean salad on the other side, taking up the other half of the bowl.
Top with chopped avocado, cherry tomatoes and sliced cucumber.
Add a few nuts, toasted pine kernels, pumpkin seeds or sesame seeds.
If you’ve never made cauliflower rice, you might be surprised how tasty it is.
The only hassle about making cauliflower rice is the actual blending part, which, if you have a large food processor will be easy-peasy.
But if you rely on a small-sized food processor, then you’ll need to do it in several batches.
Pulse the cauliflower a few times until it is the size you want. But be careful not to over-pulse it and turn it into a mush.
Next, cook the cauliflower rice in a dry frying pan, adding a dash of lemon juice or gluten-free kecap manis (Indonesian sweet soy sauce) when it’s almost ready.
It only takes a couple of minutes to soften up and be ready to eat or to make a salad with.
Mix in some chopped cherry tomatoes, chopped cucumber and any other salad ingredients of your choice and serve with some homemade cilantro sauce on the side or mixed through it, or sub with cashew nut sauce.
#4 Hot and Steamy Easy Leek & Cauliflower Bake
This leek & potato bake is so easy to make. All you have to do is chop the leeks and mushrooms, or any other veggies you want to include and sprinkle them with salt, nutritional yeast and a herb of your choice.
Mix well and pour on some plant milk. Then top with sliced potatoes and sprinkle each layer with salt and nutritional yeast.
Bake in the oven for 50 minutes and let sit for 10 minutes before serving.
#5 Oil-Free Roasted Vegetables
Take a large roasting tray, chop the vegetables and arrange them in the tray in a single layer. Sprinkle with salt and flip to cover evenly.
Red cabbage: chop into large rounds of at least 2 cm thickness and sprinkle with salt.
Zucchini: cut in half lengthwise, then cut across to make boats of about 5cm in length. Sprinkle with salt before placing them in the roasting tray.
Sweet potato: cut into squares of about 2 cm and add directly to the tray. There’s no need to salt sweet potato.
Other vegetables you might like to roast include carrots, eggplant (pre-salted and sweated and rinsed) and red peppers (but these shrink a lot and are sometimes better done in their own separate pan).
#6 Spicy Chilli, Red Pepper & lettuce in a Lentil Flatbread
Spice it up a bit by adding some chilli pepper and sweet pepper to the bean salad and serve with green leaves or crunchy lettuce in a lentil flatbread or a shop-bought, gluten-free vegan wrap.
Spread the wrap or flatbread with some homemade hummus for extra creaminess.
But I do like to give it a protein boost, so I would serve it with tofu or a bean salad.
I used to make it more nasi-style with garlic, ginger, cumin and chilli but these days I also make it much more plain and it’s still a favourite.
To make the vegetable rice, cook an oil-free stir-fry or make some air-fried vegetables then toss together with the pre-cooked rice and a little gluten-free soy sauce.
#8 Vegan Burger
If you make the vegan burgers in advance there’s nothing quicker than to throw together a delicious plate of bean salad with a vegan burger wrapped in a crunchy leaf of lettuce.
Serve with homemade cashew sauce or a spicy chilly sauce and top with some ripe avocado slices.
#9 Loaded Sweet Potato Chips
OMG, who doesn’t love sweet potato chips?
What’s the only thing better than sweet potato chips?
Loaded sweet potato chips!!
And it doesn’t take much imagination to include bean salad as part of the loaded sweet potato recipe – or you could serve the salad on the side.
Either way, a scrumptious, easy wfpbno meal.
#10 Homemade Falafels
A perfect accompaniment to bean salad is some delicious homemade falafels and a side of hummus! Simple, tasty and nutritious.
#11 Easy Smashed Potatoes from the Air Fryer
These crunchy pieces of tasty potato can be made the classic way with a brushing of oil, or completely oil-free as part of a WFPBNO diet.
They are crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside and go perfectly with a bean salad.
How to Make a Delicious Bean Salad
There are loads of ways to make a bean salad – this is just an example.
You can let your imagination run wild and add whatever you like but here is a suggestion for a delicious bean salad.
Use black beans, borlotti beans, black-eyed beans, fava beans or a mix of 2 or 3. I like to cook my beans in the rice cooker because it makes them easier to cook.
For an oil-free dressing, I used mashed avocado with a light sprinkling of salt and pepper, a dash of balsamic vinegar and a dash of kecap manis sweet soy sauce.
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