Perfect Three Bean Salad

This is the perfect Three Bean Salad recipe – it will be the star of any potluck or backyard barbecue! It’s easy to make and full of flavor from garlic, herbs and a delicious homemade dressing.

I know bean salad often gets a bad reputation – but it’s actually one of my all-time favorite summer dishes. We make this so often during hot weather season, it’s a miracle I haven’t turned into a bean yet.

There is nothing boring or overly sweet about my way of making a three bean salad – it’s zingy, full of pep with just the right balance of flavors. It’s such a simple dish but truly one of the most amazing things you can eat, in my humble opinion.

Ingredients you’ll need

Here is a visual overview of the ingredients in the recipe. Scroll down to the printable recipe card at the bottom of this post for quantities!

Ingredient notes

• Beans: Technically, you can use any three types of beans and you’ll have a three bean salad. This here is my favorite combination. I do think you should always stick to using green beans, but you can easily use garbanzo beans in place of the white beans. I have also seen salads use black beans in place of the red kidney, but that’s something I have never tried personally.
• Green beans: I mostly make this salad in the summer using fresh green beans, which is how it tastes best to me. I do not recommend using canned green beans, as they are very soft. You can easily use frozen green beans though. Make sure you cook them around 6-8 minutes until fully heated through, do not just defrost them – I always fully cook frozen vegetables to avoid food-borne illness.
• Onion: Red, white or a mix of both are best here.
• Celery: If you’re not a fan of celery, you can skip it. If you want to add something for the crunch, a chopped Granny Smith apple is also delicious.
• Parsley: Feel free to use a mix of soft, fresh herbs here for even more flavor – parsley, dill, thyme and oregano are all delicious in this salad.
• Honey: You can use maple syrup or white sugar in place of the honey.
• Vinegar: Apple cider vinegar is my favorite here, but red wine vinegar, white wine vinegar or white balsamic vinegar all work as well.
• Mustard: I like to use both smooth and whole grain Dijon mustard, but you can use only smooth mustard if you prefer. Regular old yellow mustard is fine in place of the Dijon.
• Garlic: Fresh garlic is a must for me in this recipe, but you can use ½ – 1 teaspoon of dried garlic powder instead.

How to make a Three Bean Salad

1. Start by combining the dressing ingredients in a large bowl with the onion. Set the bowl aside while you prepare the beans – leaving the onions to soak in the dressing for a while takes their raw sharpness and makes them much more pleasant to eat.

2. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Salt generously, then cook the green beans to your liking. Some love their green beans crunchy in a salad, in this case you would cook them for just 2 minutes and then quickly rinse them under cool water for 15-30 seconds to cool them down a little bit, but not completely.

For softer green beans with a bite, cook them for 4-6 minutes. For soft beans, cook for 7-8 minutes. Drain, but don’t rinse (this is my preferred way and how I always make green beans for salad – nobody in my family likes crunchy green beans).

3. Stir the hot (or warm, if you rinsed) beans into the dressing. Let them sit for 15 minutes to develop the flavor. This is key in my recipe – adding warm or hot ingredients to the dressing intensifies the flavor and really helps to take a simple salad from fine to amazing.

4. Add all of the remaining ingredients and mix well. Either serve immediately at room temperature, or cover and place in the fridge to chill before serving.

Recipe tips

Onions: I highly recommend chopping the onions as finely as you can, without mincing them. Finely chopped onion is much more pleasant to eat vs large chunks, and they will distribute more evenly in the salad.

Green bean firmness: How soft or how crunchy you want your green beans here really comes down to personal preference. The only thing you don’t want to do is to cook the beans too long, or they’ll become mushy and fall apart.

2 minutes of cooking time followed by rinsing 15-30 seconds under cool tap water will give you crunchy beans with a good bite.

5-6 minutes of cooking time without any rinsing will give you beans with a bite, but no crunch.

7-8 minutes of cooking time will give you soft beans without a bite, but they will not fall apart.

Stirring: This salad needs to be stirred somewhat carefully, as the canned beans tend to get smashed otherwise.

Storage/make-ahead: This salad keeps covered in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

Serving ideas

This is a summer dish for us, so my serving ideas are definitely barbecue-centered! But I know people who love to take bean salad to Thanksgiving, so you could absolutely add all of the turkey trimmings instead 😉

Here are our favorites:

• Marinated and grilled pork tenderloin
• Marinated and grilled steak
• Greek marinated grilled chicken
• Marinated and grilled pork chops
• Air fryer baked potatoes
• Grilled corn on the cob (or air fryer corn on the cob)

PS If you try this recipe, please leave a review in the comment section and add a star rating in the recipe card – I appreciate your feedback! Follow along on Pinterest, Facebook or Instagram. Sign up for my email list, too!

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