Lemony Tuna and Butter Bean Salad with Olives

By Sprig Originals ✓ · cooked up in Sprig

A cold-prep Mediterranean supper built entirely from the store cupboard and the salad drawer — no oven, no hob, not even a kettle. Creamy butter beans get mashed just enough to thicken a bright lemon-olive oil dressing, then loaded with oil-packed tuna, crunchy cucumber, sweet cherry tomatoes and torn olives. Fifteen minutes of chopping and stirring, and it feeds four with bread or lettuce cups on a hot weeknight.

Ingredients

• 2 400g cans butter beans, drained and rinsed
• 2 145g cans tuna in olive oil, oil reserved
• 250 g cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1 cucumber, quartered lengthways and sliced
• 1/2 small red onion, very thinly sliced
• 100 g pitted kalamata olives, torn in half
• 1 small bunch flat-leaf parsley, leaves roughly chopped

• 1 large lemon, zested and juiced
• 4 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
• to taste salt and black pepper

Instructions

1. Put the sliced red onion in a small bowl with half the lemon juice and a good pinch of salt. Toss with your fingers and leave to soften and turn pink for 10 minutes while you prepare everything else — this takes the raw bite out without any cooking.
2. In a large serving bowl, whisk the lemon zest, the remaining lemon juice, the olive oil, 1/2 teaspoon salt and plenty of black pepper until slightly thickened.
3. Add half the butter beans to the bowl and crush them into the dressing with a fork until you have a rough, creamy paste, about 30 seconds. Stir in the remaining whole beans so they stay intact.
4. Add the cherry tomatoes, cucumber, olives and the pink onions along with their soaking juice. Open the tuna and add it in large flakes plus 2 tablespoons of its oil, then fold everything together gently so the tuna does not break up completely.
5. Fold through the parsley, taste and adjust with more salt, pepper or lemon, then let the salad sit for 10 minutes at room temperature before serving so the beans soak up the dressing. Serve as is, piled into lettuce leaves, or with bread alongside.

Chef's tips

Nutrition (per serving, estimated)

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