White Bean Salad Sandwiches

When you mash canned white beans, and combine them with mayo and seasonings, the result is a creamy and tasty vegetarian salad sandwich spread. Top that sandwich with sliced tomatoes, fresh microgreens, and watercress for a very healthy and hearty lunch.

It’s no secret that the Thomas-Ewing household loves canned beans. Our pantry is stocked with canned beans ready to be transformed into delicious mains and sides – or easy lunch ideas like these White Bean Salad Sandwiches!

Canned beans are very inexpensive and you can find them just about anywhere. They are packed with protein and they’re quite filling too, which makes them a bargain for your buck!

Like any other sandwich on the planet, this one too is all about personal preference. You can build the sandwich to suite your personal tastes. That’s why I love sandwiches so much. Really! I could eat them everyday, because you never have to eat the same one twice!

THE BEAN WITH MANY NAMES

When reading recipes, many times you’ll see white beans as one of the ingredients. Yet, there really is no specific white bean! There are indeed four different kinds of beans that are often referred to as white beans. You can use each of them interchangeably.

There are navy beans, which is the bean I most commonly use in my recipes. There’s also great northern beans, cannellini beans, or the not so commonly heard of, the baby lima bean.

I’m not going to get into any detail here. Just know that any canned version of these beans will work perfectly in this sandwich recipe. If you’re interested, you can read about the different types of white beans here.

HERE’S WHAT YOU WILL NEED

1. Canned White Beans – Drain them and rinse them well.
2. Seasonings – Salt and pepper is all you need. Go easy on the salt, because the beans will likely have salt in them already, and mayonnaise is salty as well.
3. Mayonnaise – I used light mayo, but you can use regular.
4. Sour Cream – Sour cream is much better in terms of nutrition than mayonnaise. I used sour cream to lessen the amount of mayo needed. You can use all mayo if you wish.
5. Chives – Fresh chopped chives provide that slight onion flavour and adds freshness as well.
6. Dill Pickles – These are optional. I finely chopped them and added them to the white bean mixture, because in our home, a sandwich without pickles is a sin.
7. Bread – If you’re putting in the effort to make a delicious veggie-packed sandwich, buy some good bread too. I used sprouted bread.
8. Toppings – Nothing beats tomatoes, microgreens, and watercress on a sandwich. But you can add whatever toppings you normally have on your sandwich.

HOW TO ASSEMBLE YOUR SANDWICH

Place the drained and rinsed beans into a mixing bowl. Using the back of a fork, smash the beans until they are mushy, but still have lumps. Add in the salt, black pepper, sour cream, mayonnaise, chopped chives, and chopped dill pickles. Toss all together until well combined.

Lightly smear each slice of bread with mayonnaise, if desired. Evenly distribute the bean mixture over 4 slices of the bread. Top each of those sliced with sliced tomatoes, watercress, and microgreens. Place the remaining slices of bread on top and cut sandwiches in half. Plate and serve with a dill pickle.

SANDWICH TOPPINGS

Like I said above, when it comes to sandwich toppings, the possibilities are limitless. When I thought about using canned beans for this spread, I knew that I wanted to offset the canned flavour with lots of freshness.

I added fresh chives, because they brighten up the sandwich and add that subtle onion flavour that we all know and love. Also, I added fresh sliced tomatoes, and lots of greens. In my case, I opted for watercress and micro greens.

Any green will do! You can use baby spinach, leaf lettuce, arugula, etc. Again, the options are up to you. The only steadfast rules are to use the same amount of mayo and sour cream that I did in order to achieve that creamy, spreadable texture.

CONCLUSION

There’s only one unfortunate thing about sandwiches like this one. If you plan to make it ahead of time, you might want to pack things separately. The spread is wet and will soak through the bread. The tomatoes will make the sandwich a soggy mess if you let it sit in the fridge for a few hours!

Pack the lettuce/greens and the tomato in a Ziploc bag. Pack the white bean salad in a small container. Next, place the bread in a separate Ziploc bag and just assemble the sandwich when you are ready to eat. It will be fresh and delicious – just like it’s intended! Enjoy!