Punch Up Bean Salad With These Briny Flavor-Packed Morsels

Bean salads are among the greatest summer side dishes. Typically created by combining a variety of different bean types with other ingredients, bean salads tend to be easy to make, giving you something delicious with less effort and time required. Whether you like green bean and tomato panzanella salad or Spanish-inspired tuna salad with white beans and oranges or anything in between, bean salad is the perfectly refreshing and bright contrast to all your outdoors picnics and barbecue gatherings in the warmer months.

If you want to add more flavor to your bean salad this summer, there's one ingredient that can take your bean salad to the next level: capers. For those who don't know, capers are pickled flower buds from caper bushes; these bite size morsels are known for their bright yet slightly salty flavor. They add a nice acidity to the salad thanks to the brine they are soaked in, which helps make the bean salad much more flavorful. You can add capers as is into your bean salad or sauté them in a pan until golden, as the crispiness from frying them provides a nice texture contrast to the rest of the salad.

The best thing about bean salad is how versatile it is. There's no one correct recipe and you can mix and match all kinds of ingredients to create a colorful and flavorful dish that is as delicious and filling as it is pleasing to look at. Don't just stop at capers; try pairing the capers with other vegetables, cheeses, and more to upgrade your bean salad.

First things first: It's important to consider what kind of beans pair best with capers. Fortunately, capers pair well with a wide variety of beans, ranging anywhere from smaller cannellini beans to string beans. Some of the most popular bean options that pair well with capers include chickpeas, canned kidney beans, or any kind of white bean.

When it comes to what flavors to include, a lot of bean salads that utilize capers tend to draw on Mediterranean inspired flavors. Capers are often combined with other popular classic Mediterranean ingredients, such as olive oil, anchovies, tomatoes, and garlic. These flavors tend to compliment and contrast each other well without any of them overpowering each other.

Last but not least, capers tend to pair well with other acidic and bright ingredients. This can include other vegetables, like onions or bell peppers. Dressings, sauces, and vinegars are also very popular pairings, such as red wine vinegar, Dijon mustard, and lemon juice.