Tuscan White Beans and Mexican Bean Salad

Back in September we covered making Cuban style black beans served with homemade corn tortilla chips and how they could easily be extended out into multiple meals. Continuing in that direction, we've made a variety of bean-based meals in the last few months and will be making plenty more in the months to come. As a quick look at two very different flavors that can be achieved using beans as the focus of a meal, today we'll dive into a Mexican bean salad and Tuscan white beans.

For both of these meals we soaked and cooked our own beans instead of buying canned, as the cost is incredibly low in comparison to the amount of food you get. To prepare bagged beans bought in bulk, soak them in a pot of water for about eight hours (overnight works fine). If you do this during the day instead, be sure to change the water out every few hours.

First up we made refried beans for the Mexican style salad, which starts out by cooking soaked pinto beans in oil on a skillet.

Adding in some chopped onion changes up the flavor a bit, and of course you want to throw in any seasonings that sound good. Garlic and onion powder are a great base, and you can finish it off with spicier elements like cayenne or crushed red pepper. As they cook and get soft, mash the beans up a bit for a softer texture.

For our salad we wanted tortilla shells for a bowl, but we wanted them baked instead of fried. Since making these we got an appliance that makes perfect tortilla bowls from flour tortillas, but here's the cheap way to do it with corn tortillas using the bottom of a muffin tin and no extra equipment required:

Ours unfortunately fell apart a bit as we were constructing the salads, but it still actually worked out quite well and tasted great. To start we've got a base of the beans along with diced tomato and avocado.

Next up goes a few dollops of sour cream and shredded monteray jack cheese.

An iceberg lettuce blend thrown on top adds in the necessary greens for a delicious salad.

And to kick this into overdrive and hit all the Mexican notes, we topped it with some chipotle salad dressing and Mexican style rice. It works as a salad to be eaten with a fork, or as a sort of awesome nachos eaten with pieces of the tortilla "bowl."

A bean-based meal doesn't have to mean going Mexican, as there are plenty of other cultures and flavors to explore. Our Tuscan white beans offer up an Italian take on beans, which starts by dicing up fresh garlic.

For this meal we're using cannellini beans, which are also soaked overnight before the cooking process starts.

Due to some camera problems we unfortunately missed a few stages for this recipe (but don't worry, we'll make it again with more pictures again soon!). There are plenty of recipes available online but the basic gist is to cook the beans with the garlic and a small amount of oil and add in a variety of green seasonings, such as sage and oregano.

To turn it more into a full-on soup, add in a few cups of homemade stock (see how we make ours right here) and some extra veggies. Here's our finished Tuscan white bean meal, served with toasted bread:

We then used the leftovers for our non traditional bean-based pasta sauce the next night, which will be covered in a new blog soon. We've also got quite a few new bean recipes coming in the near future, along with the next stop in our culinary world tour.