A few weeks ago I went to this vegan food rally at a brewery and had the most amazing bean salad served over warm brown rice and quinoa mixture. My husband and I loved it so much that I got the ingredients the next day and attempted to make it at home. To my surprise I nailed the exact same flavors! I have made this weekly since then. I am seriously obsessed with it.

This bean salad is delicious served alone or as a snack with chips. However if you want to make it more of a meal then see step five for how to make a quick rice and quinoa mixture to serve it over. I love the way the cold bean salad taste over the warm rice.

This makes a decent amount, but it only seems to last a few days at the most in my household because it’s so addicting!

Ingredients:

• Two 15.5 ounce cans of organic black beans
• One 15.5 ounce can of organic pinto beans
• One 15.5 ounce can of organic kidney beans
• One cup of red wine vinegar
• Two tablespoons of chile lime seasoning blend
• One tablespoon garlic powder
• One lime- squeeze the juice
• One tablespoon adobo seasoning
• One tablespoon onion salt
• One organic green pepper finely diced
• One organic yellow pepper finely diced
• One organic red pepper finely diced
• One sweet onion
• 2 cups frozen roasted corn
• 1/2 cup chopped cilantro

Steps:

1. Start by opening the cans of beans and rinsing in a strainer. Place in a large bowl.
2. Finely dice the peppers and onion and add to the beans.
3. Add the onion salt, adobo, garlic powder, chili lime, vinegar, lime and cilantro.
4. Spray a medium sized skillet with some olive oil and heat up the corn. Pour into the bean mixture. Try to find roasted corn if you can I think it really pumps up the flavor!
5. Mix everything together very well! Cover and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
6. If you want to serve the bean salad over a grain I take a bag of frozen brown rice and frozen quinoa (most stores have frozen brown rice. I get frozen brown quinoa from Trader Joe’s but you can skip it if you don’t live near one and/or don’t feel like making quinoa on the stove) and heat it up in the microwave. Then pour the rice and quinoa mixture over a skillet and pour a couple teaspoons of grape-seed oil (olive or avocado oil work too.) Add some fresh pico de gallo and some Cojita or feta cheese. Let cook for a few minutes.