"TikTok is well-known for setting food trends (who hasn’t tried a cucumber salad, feta pasta, or cottage cheese toast?). As a dietitian, one trend that I am currently loving is the dense bean salad. Because if you ask me, beans just might be nature’s perfect food. That’s right: Beans are a budget-friendly pantry staple that is a great source of protein, fiber, and essential nutrients with little-to-no saturated fat. Simply adding some canned beans to a few of your meals per week is a low-effort way to seriously impact your risk of heart disease, diabetes, and more—not many foods can do that single-handedly. So while beans have been the butt of the musical fruit joke forever, they really do offer a ton of nutrition and potential health benefits in a small package. I’m going to convince you why a dense bean salad is going to be your next go-to meal.
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What is a Dense Bean Salad?
If the dense bean salad (or DBS for short) hasn’t come across your for you page yet, here’s the lowdown. Violet Witchel is the self-proclaimed “dense bean salad girl” after videos of her meal-prepping a marinated bean salad for the week went viral on TikTok. The salad usually contains a variation of beans, veggies, herbs, meat, and cheese with a homemade vinegar-based dressing. It’s “dense” because it has beans as the base instead of lettuce, which means it’s higher in protein and guaranteed to fill you up—and keep you full longer than a typical salad. Also, because it uses beans as the base instead of lettuce, it can stay in the fridge for longer. While bean salads (think 3 bean salad or chickpea salad) are certainly not a new concept, Witchel just stumbled on a new way to rebrand them with drool-worthy flavor combos like her grinder dense bean salad or spicy chipotle chicken.
The appeal of the dense bean salad is that you can meal-prep a huge batch at the start of the week, and it only gets better as it sits in the fridge and the flavors have time to meld together. It’s been giving new meaning to meal prep; long gone are the days when baked chicken, brown rice, and steamed broccoli were the vibe (good riddance!). Another perk is that these salads aren’t lettuce-based, so they are truly meal-preppable—without the worry of soggy lettuce greens.
Reasons to Love Dense Bean Salads
Great for gut health
Getting enough fiber in your diet is one of the best ways to love on your good gut microbes—but most of us eat far less fiber than we should (just 7 percent of U.S. adults eat enough fiber). Beans are an underrated superfood packed with fiber (about 6 grams in a half cup). They’re the perfect food for your gut because beans provide a balanced combo of both soluble and insoluble fiber—each works in slightly different ways to support overall gut health (soluble fiber helps hydrate stools so they are easier to pass, while insoluble fiber adds bulk so that stools move faster through the colon).
The fiber in beans isn’t just functional either; they also contain some prebiotics—which give the healthy bacteria in your gut something to eat. As your good gut microbes ferment that fiber, they create short-chain fatty acids that provide energy for the cells lining the gut, tackle inflammation, and bolster the immune system. Combined with a rainbow of colorful fresh vegetables, you’ll be scoring a ton of fiber in your lunch (or dinner) as well as antioxidants, which also keep your gut microbes happy.
Packed with plant-based protein
There are plenty of good reasons to add more plant-based protein to your diet. It isn’t just better for the planet; plant-based protein has a ton of benefits. But it’s not all or nothing. Most of the dense bean salads Witchel posts combine beans with an animal-based protein like chicken. As a dietitian, I’m often focused on what we can add to our diets to make them more well-balanced rather than subtracting “bad” foods. Adding more beans to your plate alongside your favorite proteins in a salad like the DBS means you can have the best of both worlds. Your salad is going to be packed with plenty of protein, but you’ll also secure the health benefits of eating beans.
Provides essential nutrients you may be missing out on
Beans also contain other essential minerals beyond fiber that are commonly low, like potassium, folate, and magnesium. Here’s the lowdown: For a one-half cup serving, most beans will provide you with 10 percent (or more) of your daily needs for potassium (helps regulate fluid balance and blood pressure) and magnesium (essential for strong bones and a healthy immune system). Dense bean salads can also help you get more choline, an essential nutrient that supports proper heart, liver, and brain function as well as metabolism. Like fiber and potassium, most of us aren’t eating enough choline. In fact, as many as 9 out of 10 adults in the U.S. do not consume enough choline in their diets. Combining beans with an animal-based protein like whole eggs, chicken, or steak can optimize the choline content of your DBS.
Are There Any Downsides to the Dense Bean Salad Trend?
There’s a lot to love about dense bean salads, but there are a few things to keep in mind. For starters, if you aren’t used to eating a lot of fiber (especially at a single meal), you may develop some undesirable side effects. Beans are high in fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides, and polyols (collectively known as FODMAPs). Going from zero to 100 eating FODMAPs can cause bloating, gas, and discomfort—especially in individuals with IBS or other gut sensitivities. To avoid this, try adjusting the portion size of your dense bean salad—starting small and gradually increasing. When serving a smaller portion, I recommend adding it to a wrap or sandwich (versus a bowl) to provide enough food for a whole meal.
Another potential downside is that you’ll get tired of eating the same salad every day. Meal-prepping a big batch of salad for lunch for the week is great in theory (the convenience!), but it may give you the ick by Friday. Your gut microbiome thrives on a diverse diet, so eating the same thing every day isn’t the best. But if the dense bean salad is your thing, try rotating the ingredients week by week to add in variety.
Recipes to Get You Started
Ready to make your own DBS? Here are a few of my favorites to get you started.
- This sun-dried tomato dense bean salad from Witchel is packed with flavorful ingredients, from chipotle-spiced chicken and pepperoni to basil and artichoke hearts.
- I’m crushing on this vegetarian miso edamame dense bean salad, also from Witchel.
- Just because it’s fall doesn’t mean you have to give up on salads. Check out this fall DBS from Food52.
- I love the Mediterranean vibes of this dense bean salad from Eating by Elaine.
Deborah Murphy MS, RDN, Registered Dietician and Contributing Wellness Writer
Deborah Murphy is a registered dietitian, nutrition writer, and recipe developer based in Chicago, IL. She has over 10 years of experience working in the field of health and wellness and specializes in plant-based nutrition. Deborah currently writes for publications such as Eating Well.