Green Bean and Puy Lentil Salad with Vinaigrette, Soft Herbs and Pine Nuts
This is a flavourful summer dish using green beans and speckled grey-ish, bluish, greenish puy lentils, dressed with a honey and grainy mustard vinaigrette, which can be enjoyed as a side dish or more of a main, depending on how you’re feeling.
Puy lentils – sometimes just labelled as green lentils, retain their shape after cooking so are perfect for vegetable salady dishes like this one. An absolute must is that the lentils need to be dressed with the vinaigrette while still warm, so they absorb all that lovely flavour. I then recommend leaving them to cool off before adding herbs and tossing in the veg, to avoid them wilting.
If you like the sound of this dish, then you might also enjoy the Cherry Tomatoes with Puy Lentils and Dill from my cookbook It Starts with Veg, and should immediately head to your favourite bookshop to treat yourself to a copy! The dishes follow the same method for the lentils, yet with different flavoured dressings and with different vegetables to accompany them they are entirely different dishes – yes this is my sneaky way to fill out my and your recipe repertoire without too much hard work.
I had planned to serve a pan-fried salmon fillet alongside the lentils, but I photographed this recipe on one of the hottest days of July, and after making the salad, decided just opening a good quality tuna and adding a few slices of tomato would be perfect enough.
p.s. if you don’t have my book (why not?) you can find the cherry tomato lentil combo recipe over on Women’s Health.
- 100g puy lentils, rinsed
- 1 bay leaf
- 200g green beans, topped and tailed
- ~30g soft herbs – parsley, dill, or tarragon or basil
- 2 tbsp pine nuts, toasted
- salt and pepper
- 2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil, plus more to drizzle
- 1 tbsp white wine or sherry vinegar
- tsp grainy mustard
- tsp honey
- 1 garlic clove, finely chopped
- First cook your lentils. Place lentils in a saucepan with 300ml/10fl oz water (3 x the lentil weight) and a bay leaf. Bring to the boil then reduce to a gentle simmer. Cover and cook for 22 minutes, until the lentils are soft enough to eat but retain some bite in the centre (while the lentils cook stir together the ingredients for the vinaigrette and season to taste). Turn off the heat, sit for 5 minutes, then drain, shaking off as much excess water as possible. Discard the bay leaf. Transfer to a medium-sized bowl, and toss with ¾ of the vinaigrette, then allow to cool off so no longer steaming (around 5-10 mins).
- Meanwhile blanch the beans in a small saucepan of salted boiling water for 3-4 minutes until al dente. Shock in cold water and shake to drip dry.
- Toss the cooled lentils with the herbs (leaving some to top the dish) and season to taste. Plate up on a serving platter and top with the beans. Add a little seasoning and the leftover dressing to the top of the beans, then finish with the toasted pine nuts.