White Bean and Piquillo Salad

Sometimes you just don't feel like cooking dinner. It happened to me the other night. That's what I have a pantry for, given that going out to eat during the pandemic is a non-starter.

Here's a quick and healthy dinner salad from the pantry that takes moments to make, a salad that would make a perfect accompaniment to a piece of roasted fish, grilled calamari, or lamb chops. For more of a traditional salad, a few big handfuls of arugula would complement all these flavors. Or you could put it all in the blender to make a delicious white bean-piquillo hummus. Or you could enjoy it in all its vegan glory by itself as we did. Beans like this are extremely versatile.

White Bean and Piquillo Salad

I hate to even give a recipe because you can see all the ingredients in the photo. I mixed two 15.5-ounce cans of cannellini, a small jar of piquillos (8 piquillos in total), half a bunch of green onions, one clove of minced garlic, one teaspoon of pimentón (smoked paprika), the juice of half a lemon, and salt to taste. A slug of olive oil would have been delicious, but we're trying to keep the non-essential calories to a minimum.

And there you have quite literally a five-minute dinner that is as easy as it is delicious.