My French Green Bean Salad is a staple at home and at family gatherings.
It's easy to prepare, budget-friendly, good for you and tastes great as a side dish with most main course meals.
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🧅 Ingredients
This string bean salad is made with fresh ingredients and a homemade French mustard vinaigrette dressing.
For the full US and metric measurements, see the printable recipe card.
- Green Beans — fresh green beans, either store-bought or home-grown.
- Shallot — or mild young green or red onions. The onions shouldn't overpower the salad taste.
- Dijon Mustard — I like to use grainy french mustard.
- Vinegar — I think this dressing turns out better with natural vinegars, such white wine vinegar or a mild apple cider vinegar. You can also use distilled vinegar if that is what you have in your pantry. Another idea is to use home flavored vinegars such as herb infused vinegar, raspberry vinegar and tarragon vinegar.
- Salt and Black Pepper — freshly ground black peppercorn tastes better. Consider getting a fruity black peppercorn variety (Tellicherry or Malabar) for extra flavor.
- Oil — a neutral oil will do. We use either sunflower oil, vegetable oil or canola oil.
Alternatively to french green beans (aka string beans), you can also use yellow wax beans or purple beans.
🔪 How to make it?
The salad contains only a few ingredients, and it will take you about 15 mins to complete it from start to finish.
Step 1
Cut off ends and discard stringy fibrous green beans. Rinse the beans.
Slice shallots and keep aside.
Step 2
Boil the beans until crisp-tender in a pot of salt water.
Place them into a bowl of ice water after boiling to retain the texture quality of your beans.
Strain your beans and pat dry.
Step 3
Prepare the vinaigrette dressing.
Combine first, vinegar, salt, pepper, and mustard. Then whisk in the oil.
Step 4
Add chopped shallots to the beans in a bowl and pour dressing over all that.
Mix it up a bit and serve up.
📖 Recipe
French Green Bean Salad Recipe
Ingredients
For the Bean Salad:
- 8 ounces Green Beans
- 2 small Shallot
- Salt Water to boil beans
- Ice Water to stop the boiling process
For the Dressing:
- 2 Teaspoons Dijon Mustard *see Note
- 2 Teaspoons Vinegar *see Note
- ¼ Teaspoon Salt
- pinch Black Pepper Ground
- 1 ½ Tablespoon Oil *see Note
Instructions
For the Bean Salad:
- Prepare your green beans by cutting off both ends. Rinse your beans and keep aside.8 ounces Green Beans
- Slice shallots and keep aside.2 small Shallot
- Keep a pan with salt water to boil and once the water boils place the green beans into the water.Salt Water
- Boil green beans for 5–7 minutes, or until they are cooked but still crunchy. That way they will remain green too and won't overcook and get mushy.
- Quickly place cooked beans into a bowl prepared with ice water to stop the cooking process.Ice Water
- Strain cooked beans and pat dry.
For the Dressing:
- Prepare your vinaigrette dressing. Place the mustard with the vinegar, salt, and pepper in a bowl. Mix the content well with a fork.2 Teaspoons Dijon Mustard, 2 Teaspoons Vinegar, ¼ Teaspoon Salt, pinch Black Pepper Ground
- Next, pour in the oil. Beat the dressing until the ingredients are well incorporated.1 ½ Tablespoon Oil
Assemble Salad:
- Add sliced shallots to the green beans in a serving bowl. Briefly mix together.
- Pour the vinaigrette over the green beans and serve at room temperature or cooled.
Notes
- Use a French Dijon mustard. You can use wholegrain mustard as seen in the post or the ground classic Dijon mustard. Further options: Green Pepper Mustard and fruity red colored black currant wholegrain mustard. These are all Dijon mustard flavor variations.
- For the Vinegar use something like white wine vinegar, apple cider vinegar or regular distilled white vinegar
- For the oil, use plain sunflower oil or canola oil or vegetable oil.
- Pick raw green beans which are tight, dark green young and slim. The older, the more fibrous the green beans get.
Nutrition
🍴 Serving
The green bean salad is a summer classic which I grew up with!
It's super french because green beans are commonly grown and harvested in French gardens from July to September. We call them haricot vert in French.
Usually, in the hotter summer months, people prefer to opt for garden-fresh lighter meals and light salads are served as a small side dish.
French Folks eat a classic quiche Lorraine, omelet, mixed vegetables soups and fish meals with this french bean salad.
Then, of course, there is always bread, cheese, and some good wine.
This bean salad can be frequently seen at social gatherings as well.
You will find it right next to the tabbouleh and peeled tomato salad, waiting to be served with roast beef, Foie gras (duck liver pate) and a crunchy baguette.
You can choose to serve it up warm (right after cooking the beans) or cooled, slightly refrigerated.
🍱 Storage
We typically don't keep french bean salad leftovers in our fridges. French people prepare it freshly and serve a small quantity with their main course meal.
What they do instead, in France, is boiling the string beans and store them in the airtight containers in the fridge for the coming days.
Then they take out some of these boiled beans and top them with a previously prepared vinaigrette dressing, before serving them cooled.
Yet, if you have leftovers of this french green bean salad, I'd simply recommend storing them in airtight containers in your refrigerator for up to 1 day.
They are still ok to eat and that way you can avoid food waste.
What do you do with the shallots?
Would you make any part of this dish ahead of time or is it best to do just before serving?
Hi Kitra,
You can cook the green beans ahead and store in the fridge. Prepare the dressing and keep it ready. Just before serving cut the shallots and mix it all together. Pour the dressing always before serving the salad.
Fresh green beans and fresh tomatoes are why I SO look forward to summer. You just can't make a delicious salad like this without fresh beans. My kind of salad!