No one wants to cook a hot meal in the heat, which is why this recipe could be your summer saviour.
Everything feels like too much effort when it’s hot outside. Even sitting on your sofa makes you sweat, and cooking is the last thing on your mind. But, you still need to eat even when it feels like exercise.
Most of us turn to boring leafy salads in warm weather, but what if we told you there’s a way to make a nutrient-rich salad that tastes great too?
What’s more, the salad can even be made in a large batch and prepared ahead of time. This means you can make enough to feed you for an entire week, and on those really hot days you simply need to reach into the fridge and grab a bowl.
The recipe was shared on TikTok by Violet (@violet.cooks), who referred to it as a “sundried tomato dense bean salad”. It’s packed with protein from both meat and beans, and has plenty of vegetables in it too.
Violet started her video by explaining what her dense bean salad entails and showed off one serving suggestion by spooning some of the mixture onto a large lettuce leaf and folding it up like a tortilla wrap.
She said: “Every week I make up a dense bean salad, which is a salad packed with veggies, tons of protein, and a vinegar-based dressing that lasts the entire week. I eat it every single day for lunch and it’s basically the only thing that ensures I get enough protein and vegetables throughout the week.”
The woman did not share an exact recipe in her TikTok video, but she did talk through each of the ingredients as she filmed herself chopping them and adding them to the bowl.
She started with shallots, flat-leaf parsley, fresh basil, two bell peppers, and “a full container” of cherry tomatoes.
Next up, Violet added her meat to the mixture. You can opt for whatever meat you feel like throwing in, but Violet used one package of pepperoni and “about half a pound” of smoked chipotle chicken.
The woman then diced an entire jar of sundried tomatoes, making sure to keep the oil to one side to help make her dressing at the end.
She also chopped up artichoke hearts before emptying a tin of cannellini beans and a tin of chickpeas into a colander to rinse them off and add them to the salad. Her last item before moving onto the dressing was one container of mozzarella balls.
To make the dressing, Violet mixed some of the sundried tomato oil with some garlic olive oil, white wine vinegar, pizza seasoning, sea salt, and mustard.
She then whizzed it all up with a milk frother to make the sauce creamy before pouring it over her salad and giving it a good stir. Finally, Violet separated the salad into several containers to give herself easy meals for the week.
Commenters on the video were blown away by her recipe, with many saying they were eager to try it themselves.
One person said: “Looks wonderful!”
While another added: “This looks incredible.”
