This pizza-inspired Italian Dense Bean Salad skips the lettuce and loads up on hearty beans, pepperoni, mozzarella, and bold toppings for a meal-prep-friendly lunch that tastes like your favorite slice with no oven required. 🍕🥗
It is so easy to love a no-lettuce salad. Dense bean salad recipes (dubbing them as DBS) are trending on social media (#fiber) and for a good reason, but truthfully, I’ve been eating them for 2+ years now (this Cannellini Bean Salad or my go-to Friday Night Salad are FAVES). They’re awesome for meal prep and great for office lunches.
Ingredients You’ll Need
- Beans – Use your favorite mix of beans here. I used white beans (great northern beans or cannellini beans) and chickpeas, but really any type of beans will do. Try black beans, butter beans, lentils, butter bean, kidney beans or even edamame. It is a nutritious DENSE bean salad after all.
- Meat & Cheese – Pepperoni, chopped salami deli meat and mozzarella balls, just like your favorite house Italian chopped salad. For extra protein, consider also adding shredded rotisserie chicken or hard-boiled eggs.
- Fresh Vegetables – I’ve included green bell peppers, cherry tomatoes, red onion, and fresh basil.
- Dressing – Made with olive oil, champagne vinegar, dijon mustard, hot honey, pizza seasoning (or Italian seasoning) salt and pepper or feel free to use store bought Italian dressing instead.
See the recipe card below for a full list of ingredients and measurements.
Other Dense Bean Salads to try:
- Caprese Bean Salad
- Black Bean Couscous Salad
- Buffalo Ranch Chickpea Pasta Salad
- No Lettuce Cobb Salad (meal-prep friendly)
Recipe FAQs
This Italian bean salad is great for meal prep. Store in an airtight container for up to 3 days. It may get a little ‘wet’ from tomatoes draining their juices, but give it a good toss and you’re good to go.
I always pair a DBS with a heaping scoop of cottage cheese. I find it balances quite nicely and another boost of protein.
Drain the beans and allow them to DRY before using. It allows the beans to absorb the dressing.
A bunch of options honestly – for seasoning think of flavored crusts, put your favorite twist on that (garlic parm dressing, herbs/seasonings, cajun spice (paprika, cayenne, pepper), ranch, onion THE LIST GOES ON AND ON.
Other fresh veggies – Up the fiber content! Add artichoke hearts, kalamata olives, mushrooms, red peppers, or even chopped broccoli.
Love this recipe? Please leave a 5-star 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 rating and comment in the recipe card below. Thanks for visiting!
Italian Dense Bean Salad {Viral Tik Tok Recipe}
Equipment
- Mixing Bowl
- knife & cutting board
- Whisk
- Large mixing spoon
- measuring cups / spoons
Ingredients
Salad
- 1 can cannellini beans, 15 oz
- 1 can garbanzo beans, 15 oz
- 4 oz Pepperoni, quartered
- 6 slices salami
- 1 package Mozzarella pearls
- 1/2 quart cherry tomatoes, quartered, 6 oz
- 1 green pepper, diced evenly
- 1/2 small red onion, finely sliced
- 1/4 cup Fresh basil, julianned
Dressing
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 3 tbsp champagne vinegar, sub red wine vinegar if needed
- 2 tbsp dijon dressing
- 2 tbsp hot honey
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp cracked pepper
- 1 tsp pizza seasoning
Instructions
- Prep the ingredients first as this is just a toss and mix sorta situation.
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the dressing ingredients until combined.
- Add all of the salad ingredients to the bowl and toss together. Give it a little taste and adjust seasonings as needed (want a little more heat? Pinch of red pepper flakes. Balance the oil? Another splash of vinegar will do.
- Serve! We love to enjoy a serving with 1/2 cup cottage cheese for an extra protein boost.
this is delicious! It’s amazing you get the pizza flavor without really any pizza essential ingredients (sauce, dough, etc). great recipe!
Bursting with flavors and easy to make!
Bursting with flavor…I love this recipe!
this is so satisfying!
A modernization of the ole pasta salad — and this one is better!
So easy to throw together. Perfect for this season still dense and filling but feels light. I made a few swaps for meatless Italian sausage and mozzarella shredded instead of balls and delish!!