A bean salad without the added sugar still a sweet treat

This column was first published Aug. 23, 2017.

When is a net weight not a net weight? Or, how to make 7.3 ounces seem like 14.5.

Here’s my story.

Friends invited us over for a summer dinner where they would do most of the cooking and we would bring a salad. I opted to bring a no-added-sugar version of a classic three bean salad.

According to some sources, the classic three bean salad (green, yellow or wax and kidney beans) first appeared in the 1960s. Since that salad’s three beans came from canned beans, the original recipe could have come from a canned bean company.

I’ve always liked all three beans, especially wax or yellow beans. I’ve grown them (not always successfully) in my garden. Fresh wax beans, lightly steamed and simply seasoned with a touch of butter and some salt and pepper — yum.

For the salad I was planning to make, I thought I’d try to use fresh green and wax beans instead of canned. It’s summer, so I didn’t want to spend the time cooking the kidney beans; rather, I decided to rely on canned, organic beans.

Locating fresh green beans was a cinch because there were piles of them at my local farmers market. In the past, finding fresh wax beans could be a difficult and, sometimes, impossible task. Fresh wax beans seem to have a short season and when found, tend to be pricey. After visiting three markets, I gave up and went for a can of wax beans.

The label of the canned wax beans I bought stated: “NET WT 14.5 OZ (411g).” Because my recipe uses nearly a pound of fresh green beans, I almost bought just one can of wax beans, because it appeared to contain nearly a pound of beans, or so I believed. To be safe (and perhaps to have another can to make the salad again), I bought two cans.

I assumed that the net weight referred to the net weight of the beans inside the can. Was I wrong.

When making the salad, I drained the first can of wax beans and weighed the beans on my kitchen’s digital scale. To my surprise, I found they weighed just 7.3 ounces.

The beans from two cans of drained wax beans weighed in at 14.7 ounces; nearly equal to my fresh green bean’s weight. That label must mean the net weight is the total weight, including the liquid, of what’s inside the can, excluding the can. Tricky.

Because I didn’t have a set recipe for a three bean salad, I went hunting on the internet for one. I knew the dressing was a sweetened vinaigrette; I just didn’t know how sweet until I compiled a few recipes.

For a single salad, which called for a half-pound each of green and wax beans and a can of kidney beans, the dressing was commonly sweetened with up to ¾ cup granulated sugar. For my larger salad, that would have been up to 1½ cups sugar. That’s nearly 1,200 calories and to my palate would have produced a very sweet salad.

I doubled everything in my salad except for the dressing and decided to sweeten the dressing with the equivalent of a ½ cup of sugar using the natural sugar substitute organic stevia instead. Zero calories and no added sugar. Now that’s sweet.

How did my salad turn out? Not too sweet and delicious with the right balance of green, yellow and kidney beans. Give it a try.

• Don Mauer welcomes questions, comments and recipe makeover requests. Write to him at don@theleanwizard.com.

No-Sugar-Added Three Bean Salad

1 cup white wine vinegar

12 packets organic stevia (equal to ½ cup granulated sugar)

½ cup extra-virgin olive oil (California preferred)

4 medium garlic cloves, peeled and minced

1 teaspoon sea salt

½ to 1 teaspoon fresh-ground black pepper

1 pound fresh green beans, ends trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces

8 ounces frozen corn kernels (organic preferred), defrosted

1 15-ounce can organic kidney beans, drained

1 medium red onion (about 6 ounces) peeled, trimmed and cut into small dice

1 cup diced celery (organic preferred)

½ cup minced fresh, flat-leaf parsley

2 (14.5 ounce) cans yellow wax beans, drained

In a small mixing bowl, whisk the vinegar, stevia, olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper together until combined. Set aside.

Add the fresh green beans to a 4-quart saucepan and fill it half full of water. Place over high heat and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low to just keep it simmering and cook for 5 minutes, or until crisp-tender.

While the green beans cook, fill a medium mixing bowl half full with ice; adding water until the bowl is two-thirds full. Set aside.

When the beans are cooked, use a slotted spoon to transfer them to the ice water bowl and let them sit until chilled, about 5 minutes. Drain well.

Add the chilled green beans, corn, kidney beans, onion, celery, parsley and dressing to a medium-large stainless steel or glass mixing bowl. Using a rubber spatula, mix until combined and coated with dressing. Add the canned wax beans and gently combine with the salad. Refrigerate for one hour. Serve.

Serves 16

Nutrition values per serving: 137 calories (49.7% from fat), 7.6 g fat (1.1 g saturated fat), 14.9 g carbohydrates, 2.9 g sugars, 4.6 g fiber, 3.9 g protein, 0 mg cholesterol, 386 mg sodium.

SaltSense: 60% of the sodium in this salad comes from the canned beans. To reduce the sodium per serving to 240 milligrams, omit the added salt.

— Don Mauer