Rosemary and beans are a great combination.  And a perfect use for the tender cuttings of an indoor rosemary plant is a rosemary and bean salad.

This super easy bean salad is my favourite use for the rosemary trimmings 😊

The rosemeary cuttings have a milder flavour than rosemary leaves on woody mature stems.  And the entire shoots can be chopped up into the salad.

If you are making this bean salad with mature rosemary stems, strip the rosemary leaves off their woody stem, and chop the leaves very finely.  Adjust the amount of rosemary to your taste.

This recipe serves one for a meal, or serves our family as a side dish.  If you are bean-loving family, double the recipe and use the full can of beans.

Rosemary Bean Salad Recipe:

1/2  19oz/540ml can  cannellini beans (white kidney beans), rinsed  (or beans of your choice)
1/4 of a red onion (sweet onion such as vidalia, or green scallions are great too 🙂 )
1 tbsp finely chopped rosemary leaves (if you look at the picture, you can barely see them, but to be sure, the taste is definitely there)
12 cherry tomatoes, cut in quarters or in half (add more or less tomato; all flexible here)
1/2 clove garlic, finely minced
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil  (a neutral oil such as grapeseed is great also; my mom always used sunflower oil)
2 tbsp vinegar
salt & pepper to taste
pinch of sugar (optional, but that’s how my mom made it; I often use a couple of drops of maple syrup instead or skip the suger entirely especially in the summer when the tomatoes are sweeter)

Mix all ingredients together thoroughly, and enjoy 😊

My Recipe Notes:

🌿If you have time, let the bean salad sit for at least an hour before serving for the flavours to meld.  Rarely is that an option in my household.

🌿I chop my cannellini beans in half (approximately) because i like this salad in small pieces  (ditto for quartering the tomatoes).  But this is a totally unnecessary step.

🌿, I sprinkle a touch of salt on the chopped garlic and crush it further with the side of the knife.   My mom just finely chopped the garlic.

🌿If I have fresh parsley, I will also add chopped fresh parsley to this bean salad

🌿This is a real throw-together bean salad that can be easily modified to accomodate whatever ingredients you have on hand.

🌿Add the remaining cannellini beans to a soup, or puree the beans with rosemary and roasted garlic for a delicious dip (got more lanky rosemary stems?  add them to the dip 😊

🌿This salad is also great the next day – makes for a hearty and delicious portable lunch 😊

Enjoy 🙂
Barb

PS – I like to store my bean salad in glass containers.  These Anchor Hocking containers come with air-tight seal lids making them a great choice for taking salads to work.