Roasted Red Pepper Lima Bean Salad

This roasted red pepper salad with Lima beans fits every diet – even fat free diet, because you can skip oil and it will be just as tasty. Roasted red peppers can make any dish taste good, and this one is no different. I made sure to alter the recipe so that I can taste them with every bite.

I bought a cook book by a famous chef, a beautiful modern book with thick pages full of colourful images and mouthwatering descriptions. I brought it home, brewed a cup of coffee, and chose several delish looking salad recipes. I ran to the store to buy ingredients, and started cooking without a delay.

ThatÂ’s when I read a recipe again, carefully, and all of a sudden realized that there was nothing to it to make it delicious. It did not even have enough red peppers in it, and spices were absent as well. It was a simple plain bean salad recipe, that looked really great on the picture (perhaps, because food stylist working on it was really good)

If you ever cooked something expecting magic to happen, and wounded up with something really plain on your dinner table, I am sure you can identify.

Oh well, experience taught me that spices can make anything taste good, and that there is never enough roasted red pepper in the salad.

So I have changed the recipe. And you can, too. I also simplified it a bit. I will give you my basic recipe and a simple and healthy salad dressing to make it taste special.

Roasted Red Pepper Salad With Lima Beans

Ingredients

• 1 can or two cups Lima beans (buy two cans)
• 2 big red peppers
• 4 cloves of garlic, roasted
• ¼ cup kalamata olives, pitted and chopped
• 2 tbsp sweet onion, chopped
• 2 tbsp minced fresh cilantro
• Salt, pepper
• Dressing:
• Juice of ½ lime, salt, black pepper
• 1 tbsp unrefined sunflower or olive oil ( optional)
• 1 tbsp high quality balsamic vinegar ( optional)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven, set it on “broil”
2. This is a chef's way which still makes the peppers hard to peel: Cut the peppers lengthwise, core and remove seeds. Place the peppers skin side up on the baking sheet. Roast as close to the heat source as possible, about 4-6 minutes each side. It will take longer on normal baking setting. When you see the skin charred, pull them out, place them into the paper bag for 10 minutes, or just cover them with the lid on the plate ( so that skin comes out easier) . Remove the skin, and cut them in thin strips
3. This is my way: wash peppers, dry them with paper towels, spray with oil, don't cut them, and put them in the oven. When one side is charred, turn peppers. Pull them out, let them sit for 10 minutes, the skin will come off, and you can pull out stem and seeds, and make sure to keep the juice from inside the pepper for the salad dressing.
4. Alongside with peppers, put 4 cloves of garlic into the oven, unpeeled.
5. Try not to use canned olives, opt for real Greek kalamata olives. Remove the pits.
6. Lima beans are best to cook from scratch. If you buy them in cans, make sure you buy more because they are very tender, so they fall apart during canning. Split your canned beans into whole nice looking ones for the salad, and the rest to be used in soup.
7. Peel and mince garlic with lime juice and pepper and a tablespoon of tasty vegetable oil ( oil is completely optional) If you don’t usually eat high acidity foods, perhaps add juice of ¼ lime first and taste your salad, and add more if needed
8. Mix all the ingredients but cilantro; Try the salad. It will likely need no additional salt.
9. Let it sit for 20 minutes before serving to let the flavours mix. Add salt and cilantro before serving.

It's even better the day after.

90% of visitors find this site on Google. This is the system I followed to get 1000 visitors per day:
The System To Online Success For Dummies