This deliciously different white bean salad recipe features tuna, red onion and not much else. Use dark tuna rather than light tuna, for a better taste. Dark tuna has a strong enough flavor to stand up to the white bean taste.

If you use light tuna meat, you will lose the flavor to the beans, so make sure you get the right one. This bright-tasting salad makes a change from tuna mayonnaise-based salad recipes and you will love the classic oil and vinegar dressing. Add a splash of lemon juice (or even some lemon zest) to the dressing to give it a tangy flavor if you like.

Most of the flavor here comes from the beans and tuna and the red onion adds a piquant touch. If you have tuna in spring water rather than tuna in oil, you will need some extra-virgin olive oil to make this recipe, since the oil from the tuna is used in the dressing. You might have enough already from the can – it depends what brand of tuna it is.

This simple bean salad recipe only calls for five ingredients plus seasoning. You might think that using so few ingredients is not going to produce a very special bean salad recipe but it actually tastes great.

It is best if you have a few hours to marinate the salad in the refrigerator. Just make it the way the recipe tells you and then leave the finished salad to chill in the refrigerator so the oil mixture can soak right through and the flavors can blend together nicely.