11 Dense Bean Salad Recipes, If You’re Also Obsessed With The Trend

This classic white bean salad from Feel Good Foodie, featured on Yummly, is kind of the perfect meal prep recipe. You can bulk it up with extra veggies, like cucumbers and avocado, or pop it on top of toast. It’s a flavorful base that allows for a little dressing up throughout the week, so you don’t feel like you’re eating exactly the same thing for five days straight.

If you want a seriously flavorful DBS on deck, you’ll love Make It Dairy-Free’s Turkish chickpea salad. It’s vegan and gluten-free, and it only takes about 20 minutes to come together. Bonus points: You can eat it as is, served over rice, or rolled up in a wrap, so it’s a versatile dish, too.

Similar vibes, different flavor profile! This recipe from Jessica In The Kitchen combines all the Mediterranean ingredients you know and love into one DBS: cucumbers, chickpeas, feta, tomatoes, red onion, and fresh herbs. If you’re trying to get more protein in your meals each day, you could easily toss in some chicken for extra protein.

We all know roasting your vegetables brings out all the best flavors, and this chipotle veggie bowl from A Cookie Named Desire calls for just that. Roasted sweet potatoes, onions, bell peppers, and mushrooms come together with plenty of black beans and a homemade cilantro lime dressing to make the perfect weekday lunch.

Speaking of cilantro lime dressing, Damn Delicious’ Southwestern chopped salad is topped with it too. This one is basically all the ingredients you’d want in a taco or burrito but disassembled, so you could customize it easily by adding rice, chicken, or beef — whatever you want, really.

A traditional salad nicoise is made with hard-boiled eggs, tuna or anchovies, potatoes, green beans, and olives, but Jessica In The Kitchen’s vegan take on the dishsubs in chickpeas as a protein instead of eggs and fish. The chickpeas and potatoes will help keep you full through the afternoon, and the variety of veggies packs so much nutrition.

Chickpeas don’t usually come to mind first when you think about Italian food, but this salad from Chelsea’s Messy Apron might change your way of thinking.It’s got dried basil and parmesan cheese, and plenty of lemon and parsley to spruce up all the dense, nutritious chickpeas and veggies underneath.

Think black bean salsa, but with slightly bigger pieces so you can eat it with a spoon, and you’ll have this delicious salad recipe from Two Peas And Their Pod (featured on Yummly).You could bulk this up by adding a meat or cheese, or maybe serving it over a grain or with chips. Or, TBH, it looks good enough to tuck into with nothing but a fork and some time.

Want a little more grain in your DBS for the week? Damn Delicious’ black bean and quinoa salad should do the trick. In about 20 minutes, you’ll have a Southwestern-inspired, filling lunch prepped to eat throughout the week on its own or as a side.

If you’re a fan of sprouted beans or lentils, this salad recipe from A Pretty Life In The Suburbs (featured on Yummly) is for you. It has plenty of crunch from the purple cabbage and fresh bell peppers, and it’s loaded with nutrition and protein to boot.

And one DBS from the queen herself: Violet Witchel’s steak, corn, and peach dense bean salad feels like an ode to summer, but in a bowl. Grill up your steak and corn, add to a bowl with onion, white beans, chickpeas, tomatoes, herbs, and a big ball of burrata before topping with a homemade balsamic. Not sure it gets better than that.