Last night, my mom was making quesdillas for dinner, so I volunteered to put myself in charge of finding and creating the perfect side dish to a food I lived on in college. But what was I going to make ? At a Mexican restaurant, the normal side dish would be either refried beans, yellow rice or chips and salsa. But then, I remembered a few years ago my aunt made a delicious three bean salad, so what did I do? I hopped onto FoodTv.com and typed in "bean salad" to search for the recipe that would match some homemade Mexican.
The picture of Guy Fieri's (the chef on the Food Network who makes cooking cool for "men") black bean salad looked delicious and was just what I was envisioning making. I had most of the ingredients for the dish at home except for green onions, a red onion, canned pineapple and canned corn. Therefore, I made a quick trip to the store and of course while I was out, I had to get an iced raspberry coffee with Soymilk from Starbucks as well!
With my ingredients on the table along with my mom's food processor, a spoon, a giant bowl, and a cutting board and chopping knife, I began to assemble to salad. The first thing I did was drain and rinse two cans of black beans, and two small cans of sweet corn before placing them into the large bowl. Then I cut up my red onion before I realized half of it was rotten, so I threw half in the garbage and chopped the other half in the food processor. After the red onion, I put the green onions in the food processor and then added them to the bowl.
Fieri's recipe called for two Roma tomatoes, but I opted to leave them out of the recipe as well as switch the 1/4 cup of diced red bell pepper to one roasted red pepper and a half of roasted orange pepper that I had in the fridge and chopped up. Using a roasted pepper gave the salad a better texture and flavor. The orange in the salad really made it pop, so I decided because I had enough organic carrots in my fridge for an army, to shred up a carrot in the salad to mix it up! I also added the entire can of diced pineapple into the bowl, but I wish I had chopped the cubes in half because they looked rather large.
Now that the salad was put together, it was time to make the dressing--to which I made some changes. Instead of using the juice of 1/2 a lime, I used a full lime and then the zest of the lime for additional flavor and color. I also substituted the 3 tablespoons of honey for three tablespoons of agave nectar, which tastes exactly like honey and has a low glycemic index. (This means you won't get a high sugar rush followed by a crash.) It also has less calories, dissolves quicker and is a little sweeter than sugar.
Then the dressing called for 4 tablespoon of sherry vinegar. Not having any in the house, I added 2 1/2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar instead. In addition, I added only a dash of salt instead of a tablespoon, a few cranks of ground black pepper and opted to forget about the pinch of ground cumin and cilantro because my mom isn't a fan of the latter.
I mixed all my ingredients up making sure the salad was coated with the dressing and then plated a generous portion of the salad in three white, square bowls. I put plastic wrap over the salad and placed the bowls into the fridge to chill until dinner was ready.
This recipe gets an A+ because it is a great side dish you could have with Mexican food or even bring to a barbecue! The black bean salad was delicious! Not only is it very healthy for you, but the flavors came together incredibly. Luckily, I had an entire container of the concoction left over, so I couldn't wait to have some for lunch the following day.
The only downside to the recipe was that Fieri said the prep time was only 10 minutes, but it took me 25 to put it together because you have to wash and chop all the veggies! But, on a brighter note that night, I brought some over to my friend's house to try and her mom asked me if I bought the salad or made it because it looked just like the one they got from the store!
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