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Cape Braai
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Side · In Afrikaans: Driebone slaai

Three bean salad

Green beans, butter beans and kidney beans in a sweet-sour dressing, best made the day before. The salad on every bring-and-braai table.

The three bean salad is not a South African invention, but nowhere is it as universal. Two tins and a handful of fresh beans make a side that can stand in the sun for hours without spoiling — exactly what a braai needs.

Prep
20 min
On the fire
5 min
Serves
8
Effort
easy
Three bean salad of green, wax and kidney beans in a sweet-sour dressing
CNEcija12345 · CC BY-SA 4.0

When it goes on

Done beforehand

Made in the kitchen. On the table before you light up.

Equipment: nothing

This line

British period1806 to 1961

Chutneys, marinades, side salads — and the word chop.

Method

  1. Blanch the green beans

    Two to three minutes in fast-boiling salted water, until they still have bite. Drain at once and refresh in cold water, or they carry on cooking and go grey.

  2. Mix the dressing

    Whisk oil, vinegar, honey, mustard, chilli, lemon zest and juice with two-thirds of the herbs, and season firmly.

  3. Combine

    Put all the beans in a large bowl with the onion and pepper, pour over the dressing and fold through carefully. Tinned beans break up easily.

  4. Let it sit

    At least two hours in the fridge; overnight is noticeably better. The beans take up the dressing, and only then does the salad come together.

  5. Taste and serve

    Taste again before serving — cold food tastes flatter, and it is almost always short of salt and acid. Scatter over the rest of the herbs.

Tips

  • Rinse the tinned beans properly. The brine tastes metallic and clouds the dressing.
  • For the more South African version, swap the kidney beans for a tin of baked beans. It sounds wrong and it is the commonest version.
  • It keeps four days in the fridge, which makes it the most reliable side you can prepare ahead.

The three bean salad is the side nobody misses until it is not there. It is cheap, it fills people up, it survives warmth and it improves rather than deteriorates while standing.

The decisive part is the green beans. Out of a tin they are soft and characterless; freshly blanched they give the salad the bite everything else hangs on. Two to three minutes, no more — and straight into cold water afterwards.

The dressing is sweet and sour, and that is as it should be. Honey against vinegar, mustard as the join: the same balance as monkey gland sauce and sosaties, served cold.

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