Not every recipe or dinner trend from social media is worth your time, but every now and then something pops up in my feed that inspires a change in my meal routine. Content creator Violet Witchel’s weekly iteration of a “dense bean salad” is exactly the kind of idea that I can get on board with. Plenty of other home cooks have quickly become fans of the dense bean salad, too, and the dish is now being widely re-created and riffed on in social media feeds.
So what is a dense bean salad, and what makes it so great? This isn’t one specific recipe but rather a format — and one that is infinitely customizable. You, of course, need beans (canned are easiest), but from there you can toss in whatever else you want into this marinated mix. Hearty vegetables, herbs, alliums, nuts, fruit, and cheese are all acceptable. Most importantly, a …