Recipe: Bean Salad (& Freezing Cilantro)

Last week I picked up a bunch of cilantro while grocery shopping. I seldom buy fresh herbs as I hate to see them wilt in my fridge after I've used the few sprigs that a recipe calls for, but on sale for 50 cents, I couldn't pass up one of my favourite herbs.

I turned to AllRecipes.com's ever helpful "by ingredient" search and browsed through the top cilantro-containing recipes. I decided on two to make: a potato soup (perfect for cold weather...and involving bacon!) and a bean salad. Here is the recipe for the bean salad, slightly modified from one submitted by Karen Castle to AllRecipes.com:

• 1 can chickpeas (or ~2 cups cooked chickpeas) (drained, rinsed)
• 1 can red kidney beans (drained, rinsed)
• 1 green bell pepper (chopped)
• 1.5 cups frozen corn
• 1/4 cup (or more) fresh cilantro (chopped)
• 1 onion (chopped)
• ~4 cloves garlic (chopped)
• ~1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/2 cup red wine vinegar (I used ~1/3 cup white vinegar instead)
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 2 tbsp white sugar
• 1/2 tbsp cumin
• 1/2 tbsp black pepper
• 1/2 tsp chili powder

I started by frying the garlic and onion over low heat in a bit of olive oil until they had softened. This step is not in the original recipe, but as I dislike the strong taste of raw onion and garlic, I decided to mellow out the flavours a little by cooking them.

Next, in a large bowl, I stirred together the chickpeas, kidney beans, bell pepper, corn, cilantro, and fried onion and garlic.

I added in the olive oil, vinegar, lemon juice, sugar, cumin, black pepper, and chili powder and stirred everything up.

If possible, I suggest refrigerating this salad for a couple of hours before eating it, to allow the vegetables to marinate and absorb more flavour. I know that the bowl of salad I had today seemed tastier than the one I had yesterday, the only difference being its night spent in the refrigerator!

I've been enjoying eating this bean salad straight, adding it to fried rice for dinner last night, and scrambling it into my eggs this morning. The cilantro is fragrant and tasty and the sugar lends a nice sweetness to balance out the vinegar. It wasn't too spicy, so a bit more chili pepper or a dash of hot sauce could be added, depending on your spiciness preference!

I think this would be a quick and easy recipe to throw together for a potluck; not only is it healthy, it looks nice and can be easily adapted (and made more colourful) for whatever you have on hand (different kinds of beans, different colours of bell pepper, red onion, etc.).

As for my leftover cilantro, after a bit of Googling I decided to freeze it. I've frozen cilantro before in a small container, and ended up with a soggy clump of dark, wilted leaves when I thawed it out. At the suggestion of one website, I figured I'd try freezing individual portions in an ice cube tray instead.

I washed the cilantro, picked the leaves off the stems (which I chopped and added to my potato soup), and put them into the wells of an ice cube tray. I filled the tray with water, popped it into the freezer, and ended up with single-serving cilantro ice cubes.

cilantro -- leaves for freezing, stems for soup

the (washed) leaves packed into an ice cube tray...

...filled up with water...

...and frozen

While I know that this frozen cilantro will be too soggy for salads, I'm hoping that dropping a couple of cilantro ice cubes into a pot of soup won't be too inferior to using the fresh version. I'll let you know!

If you have any suggestions for keeping leftover fresh herbs, I'd love to hear them!