This Green Beans Salad with Beets and Pistachios makes for a beautiful, mouthwatering and healthy side dish during the holidays. I love making this salad for both Thanksgiving and Christmas and occasionally even during a winter weeknight dinner.
The color combination between red and green gives this salad such a pretty, festive look. What I love about this salad the most though is that it gives my family some more veggies and green to add to their meal:).
Blanching Green Beans
Blanching green beans is very simple. You just cook them for 2-3 minutes in boiling water, then remove with a large slotted spoon and place the green beans in a bowl with ice water to stop the cooking.
I think blanching green beans makes their green color pop plus they are cooked enough to be tender but the blanching helps them not get mushy. Which is perfect when you want to add them to a salad.
Beets – Roast or Boil?
There are several methods to cook beets and even a shortcut you can take especially if you’re cooking a lot.
- Roast the beets until you can pierce them, let cool then cut for the salad.
- Boil them until easy to pierce with a fork. Let cool then peel and add to salad.
- Buy them in a jar (there are canned versions too but I prefer the jar ones). Be aware that the jar ones can be pickled or not and here you choose based on preference. Pickled beets definitely add a nice flavor to the salad:).
I love adding beets to salads and use different methods so feel free to check some of my salads with beets:).
Green Beans Salad with Beets and Pistachios
Equipment
- 1 Medium pot
Ingredients
- 12 ozs Green Beans
- 2 beets
- 2 tbsps crushed, shelled pistachios
- 20 manzanilla olives
- ¼ shallot
- 2 tbsps olive oil
- 1 tbsp sea salt for blanching green beans
- sea salt to taste for salad
- 1 tbsp red wine vinegar
Instructions
- Roast or boil the beets according to preference. Cook until you can pierce them with a fork. Let them cool down, then peel and cut in bite size pieces. If using pickled beets, then just strain and set them aside.
- Crush the pistachios in a small mortar and pestle. Slice the shallot very thinly and add it to cold water.
- Trim green beans if needed, cut them in half if preferred. Rinse them.
- Set a medium pot halfway filled with water on the stovetop in high heat. Add 1 tbsp of sea salt. Once water boils, lower heat to medium, add green beans in and let cook for 2-3 minutes until they become bright green.
- Use a slotted spoon or strainer to remove green beans from boiling water to transfer them to a bowl with ice water. Drain after 3-4 minutes.
- Set up the salad platter in layers. Add the green beans first, then top off with beets. Add shallots, olives and sprinkle the whole platter with crushed pistachios.
- Add salt to taste, drizzle olive oil and red wine vinegar over all the ingredients. This salad doesn't need much tossing. Serve with other festive dishes and enjoy:).
Notes
- This salad is usually good for 4 servings when you’re having a holiday meal, meaning there are plenty of other dishes. But if you’re making this for a weeknight dinner it might maybe be 2-3 servings. It still works fine for my family of 4, 2 adults and 2 children.
- If looking for a more gourmet dressing check out my Meyer Lemon Vinaigrette. I often prefer the simple olive oil/red wine vinegar mix for there’s always place for a great salad dressing when having guests over.
Nutrition Label
Nutrition
If you would like to save this recipe for the next holidays, please save one of the pictured of this post to your boards in Pinterest. Let me know in comments if you have any questions or if you made any adjustments to the recipe and how it turned out.
Thank you for reading my blog! It means a lot to me and my family!
More Side Dishes for The Holidays
These are some of my other sides dishes that go on repeat during different holidays. Hope you enjoy them too:).
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