Quick Tuna and Cannellini Bean Salad

Quick tuna and cannellini bean salad may be quick to prepare but it is big on flavour and tastes like the Mediterranean in a bowl. Big fat olives, sun-ripened tomatoes, cucumbers fresh from the vine, artichoke hearts, capsicum and dressed with lemon zest, capers and chilli……healthy, quick and delicious. It’s a winner!

This is our go-to salad in summer for its healthy, quick to put together, zesty, creamy and crunchy flavours with an Italian twist. Prepared in 20 minutes, this salad is a great standby for those times you just don’t want to crank up the oven or even think about worrying what’s for lunch or dinner.

PERFECT FOR A SUMMER LUNCHEON

Quick tuna and cannellini bean salad makes a delicious summer main course. All the prep is done ready to serve. Try our haloumi fries with roasted garlic, anchovy and caper sauce for a winning entree. Again all the prep is done beforehand with just a quick cooking of the haloumi on the barbeque to do. You can’t go past our lemon curd sponge roulade as a stunning dessert. All the prep can be done a day or two beforehand. Perfect!

We always have a can of cannellini beans and tuna in oil in the fridge along with jars of juicy kalamata olives and creamy artichokes ready to pull this salad together.

Think of it as a salad nicoise where you can ring the changes by adding hard boiled eggs, crunchy celery, steamed green beans, lettuce or rocket and cooked potatoes.

Perfect too as there’s always tomatoes and cucumber in the summer kitchen and plenty of fresh Italian parsley and lemons in the garden.

The salad holds in the fridge for a good day or 2, ready to just open the fridge, spoon into a bowl, grab a fork and blob out in the aircon to your favourite Netflix show. Lunch or dinner is done!

Check out some more winning salad recipes

• prawn, pesto and chargrilled capsicum pasta
• thai smoked chicken and papaya salad
• chilli caramel salmon salad
• easy egg and bacon potato salad

What’s your favourite go-to salad in summer? We would love to hear from you in the comments below.

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Yield: 4 serves

Quick Tuna and Cannellini Bean Salad

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 15 minutes

Quick tuna and cannelloni bean salad makes a delicious summer main course. Fast to put together, zesty, creamy and crunchy flavours with an Italian twist.

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Ingredients

• 1 medium red onion halved and thinly sliced
• 2-3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 1 punnet cherry tomatoes halved
• 2 small lebanese cucumbers halved and sliced
• 1 small red bell pepper (capsicum) halved, deseeded and cut into thumbnail size pieces
• 1 cup artichoke hearts quartered
• 1/2 cup kalamata olives pitted and halved
• 1 tablespoon lemon zest
• 2 tablespoons capers rinsed and roughly chopped
• 1/4 cup finely chopped flat leaf parsley
• 1 x 15 ounce can cannellini beans (400 grams) drained and rinsed
• 1 x 6 1/2 ounce can (185 grams) sustainable tuna in oil
• pinch of red pepper flakes (chilli flakes) - optional
• good grinding  of fresh black pepper

Instructions

• add sliced onion to bowl with red wine vinegar and marinate for 10 minutes
• add tomatoes, cucumber, bell pepper (capsicum), artichokes, olives, lemon zest, capers, parsley and gently mix together
• toss through drained beans and tuna along with any oil from the can, sprinkle with red pepper flakes (chilli) and pepper
• mix gently together and cover in fridge for about an hour to let the flavours meld
• serve with crusty bread
• Enjoy!

Notes

• use the best quality sustainable tuna you can as some of the cheaper brands tend to be mushy rather than flakes of tuna
• recipe can be altered to add in hard boiled eggs, celery, cooked beans, rocket or whatever you fancy

Nutrition Information

Yield

4

Serving Size

1
Amount Per Serving Calories 330Total Fat 8gSaturated Fat 1gTrans Fat 0gUnsaturated Fat 6gCholesterol 8mgSodium 440mgCarbohydrates 40gFiber 11gSugar 4gProtein 27g

Nutritional information provided here is only intended as a guide.