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Three Bean Salad with Feta Cheese

"I had been looking for a bean salad recipe but couldn't find one that really stood out to me. I decided to make one myself. It turned out so well, all of my friends ask for the recipe!"

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Why it works: Feta cheese and olive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,438 recipes mention both. Both carry methyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells apple, fatty. The science ↓

The recipe

8 servings
Prep30 min

Ingredients

Contains: milk, soy, fish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Drain and rinse the black beans, red kidney beans and great northern beans, then add them to a large bowl.

  2. Add the diced tomatoes with green chile peppers to the bowl with the beans.

  3. Add the crumbled feta and grated red onion and gently stir to distribute them evenly.

  4. In a small bowl, whisk the extra-virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar, honey mustard, Worcestershire sauce, garlic powder and Greek seasoning until smooth, about 2 minutes.

  5. Pour the dressing over the bean mixture and toss gently until everything is coated, about 2 minutes.

  6. Cover the bowl and let the salad rest at room temperature for about 20 minutes so the flavors blend.

  7. Toss once more before serving and keep chilled in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

By allrecipes. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Feta cheese + olivetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,438 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).

  2. Beans + kidney beanstop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Tomato + olivetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,164 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together29,030 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Beans + tomatotop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,711 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Flavor stand-ins for the kidney beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, tomato, pepper, feta cheese, onion, garlic, olive):

  1. Chickpeabetter flavor fit
  2. Kidney beansthe original
  3. Sesameabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Lima beansabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, tomato, pepper, feta cheese, onion, garlic, olive. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).