This is the white bean salad I eat at the coast — cool, structured, and made to satisfy.
Rooted in ensalada de alubias blancas, this Mediterranean-style white bean and tuna salad is more than refreshing — it holds its form. Creamy white beans, oil-packed tuna, crisp summer vegetables, and a bold sherry vinaigrette with cooked egg yolk and coarse Dijon mustard.
It all happens in one bowl: start with the vinaigrette, then fold in the beans, chopped veg, and tuna. Toss, chill, serve. That’s it.
I use soaked, cooked dried beans — but canned white beans (rinsed and drained) work perfectly too.
Whether you call it Spanish white bean salad, tuna and bean salad, or summer bean salad, this is the version I make when I want something cold, complete, and deeply satisfying.
✅ You’ll learn how to:
• Build a bold vinaigrette with sherry vinegar, egg yolk & mustard
• Balance creamy white beans with tuna and fresh summer crunch
• Layer bell peppers, cucumber, plum tomatoes & red onion for snap and color
• Finish with celery seed and serve cold, like they do by the sea
🌊 Rooted in tradition — made the way I remember eating it: with sun, sea, and satisfaction.
📖 Full recipe at: https://www.garysurbanlarder.com/recipe/white-bean-salad
🕒 Timestamps
00:00 Intro 👨🏽🍳
00:16 Making the Vinaigrette 🥄
01:34 Adding the Beans & Veg 🫘🌶️🥒
03:08 Tuna & Final Toss 🐟
04:00 Time To Taste 👅
04:47 Thank You & Goodbye! 👋🏽
📍Filmed in Olvera, Spain — where summer meals are served cold, but warmly remembered.
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This is the salad I eat when I’m at the Costa del So. It is an insula de alulas blancas, a white bean salad made with beans, tomatoes, sweet pepper, egg, a nice vinegarette that’s punchy, made with coarse dijon mustard. Well, let’s get started. This isn’t your typical white bean salad. Um, it is an encilada aluvius blancas and I will take you through the ingredients, but it’s a really full flavored punchy salad. It’s not, you know, lemon juice and olive oil vinegarette. It’s a really powerful vinegarette. So, I’ll just take you through the ingredients. We have our beans. I have some red onion that I’ve chopped and washed. I have a boiled egg, hard-boiled egg. Some chopped pickles. It’s actually a girkin. Some coarse Dijon mustard. Uh, red wine vinegar. This is cherry vinegar. Some celery seed. Tuna. Have some chopped green bell pepper, some cord, seedated and chopped plum tomatoes, and some seedated and chopped cucumber. So, the first thing we want to do is to get our yolk. We’re going to need that for the basis of our vinegarettes. So, we’re just going to do this in one bowl. This is really easy. And in the summertime when you’re looking for, you know, something simple to make that’s delicious that doesn’t require a lot of cooking, all you have to do is boil an egg, then this is it. So, I just want to mash up the egg in our bowl. And once that’s mashed, I’m going to add in our mustard, our vinegar, and some of our celery seed. Can reserve the rest for later. And just give that a quick mix. Now I want to switch to my whisk and pinch of salt. Some cracked black pepper. A good amount. And now we’re going to make our emulsion with olive oil. So, I’m just going to drizzle that in and just keep whisking that until we have a really nice emulsion. You can see that’s coming together. And now that we have our emulsion, we are just going to combine our beans. And just going to give those a quick toss through just to make sure that’s nicely coated. Our girkens. It’s really easy. All in one bowl. Our onion. our cucumber, tomato, our bell pepper, and we’re not going to waste these egg whites. So just going to chop those up roughly. This is exactly the kind of salad you want to enjoy when you’re on the Costa del Soul in the hot summer. It is just refreshing. It is enough, you know, it’s not some timid, weak little salad. It really is what you need. So, get those chopped up and we’ll put that in to our bowl. So, and you know, feel free you can add anything else you like. There goes our egg whites and the rest of our celery seed. And we’re just going to stir that to combine. Just kind of tossing it gently really like you would any salad. And this is the point where you might want to adjust your seasoning. So, I’m just going to give it a bit of a taste. If it needs anything, just a bit more salt and a bit more pepper. Try to keep the pepper in the pot. And then we’ll add our flaked tuna. Give it a final mix. And you could add some chopped parsley to this if you wanted. Um, it might be a thing I would add at the end or at serving so that it doesn’t will and that you get that crispness. This is really what you want in a crisp salad. So, we’ll chill this for a good hour, two hours, and then we’ll plate it up and we’ll give it a try. Our salad is chilled, and it really looks good. It looks so amazing. And I’m just going to plate it up a bit. This is the perfect cool chilled lunch on a hot summer’s day like today. And it’s full of good things for you. protein, healthy protein, healthy fats, no gluten, and yeah, it’s time to give it a taste. I think I will add a little splash of extra virgin olive oil just for the perfume. And yeah, let’s dig in. The beans are cooked perfectly. Have enough tooth al dente that there’s structure to this salad. The flavors are absolutely delicious. That’s cool and refreshing. Perfect for a day like today where it’s going to hit 100 degrees. Well, thank you for joining me today at Gary’s Urban Lauder. If you’re looking for other cool foods, cold foods to make on a hot summer’s day, at the end there’ll be some links to some other recipes like my gaspacho. Well, if you enjoyed today’s recipe, give us a thumbs up. Please subscribe to the channel and ring that notification bell so you don’t miss a delicious recipe. And finally, please share this video with your friends and help grow our community. It really does help the channel out. Until next time, goodbye. [Music] Hm. Cucumber. [Music]
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🌞 What do you like to eat in the summer that is refreshingly delicious?
Avocado, tomato, red onion with a Greek salad dressing salad