Meals · Main-dish salads

Dense bean salad with chicken

Name: Dense bean salad with chicken
Prep time: 20 min
Total time: 20 min
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients: 1 can (400 g) chickpeas, drained and rinsed; 1 can (400 g) cannellini beans, drained and rinsed; 2 cups roasted chicken breast, cooked, shredded; 1 cucumber cucumber, diced; 1 pepper red bell peppers, diced; 1 cup grape tomatoes, halved; 1/2 onion red onions, finely sliced; 1/2 cup feta cheese; 2 tbsp olive oil; 2 tbsp red wine vinegar; 2 tsp Dijon mustard; 1 tsp dried oregano; 1/2 tsp salt; 1/2 tsp black pepper

The meal-prep phenomenon of 2025: two kinds of beans, crisp vegetables, feta, and chicken in a sharp vinaigrette — a salad engineered to be eaten from the fridge for days and somehow get better. Fiber, protein, and water content make it textbook high-satiety eating.

Time: 20 min (20 prep + 0 cook)
Servings: 4
Per serving: 441 kcal
Protein: 37 g

Both directions are legitimate — the score measures fullness per calorie, not virtue. Every version is the same dish, rebalanced.

Ingredients

1 can (400 g) chickpeas, drained and rinsed240 g
1 can (400 g) cannellini beans, drained and rinsed240 g
2 cups roasted chicken breast, cooked, shredded300 g
1 cucumber cucumber, diced200 g
1 pepper red bell peppers, diced150 g
1 cup grape tomatoes, halved150 g
1/2 onion red onions, finely sliced80 g
1/2 cup feta cheese80 g

Vinaigrette

2 tbsp olive oil30 g
2 tbsp red wine vinegar30 g
2 tsp Dijon mustard10 g
1 tsp dried oregano2 g
1/2 tsp salt3 g
1/2 tsp black pepper1 g

Every ingredient links to its food page — same data, same score, same formula.

Steps

Whisk the vinaigrette in the bottom of a large bowl (or the container you'll store it in).
Add beans, chicken, cucumber, bell pepper, tomatoes, onion, and feta.
Toss thoroughly — every bean should be coated.
Eat immediately, or refrigerate: it holds 4 days and the flavor improves as it marinates. Stir before serving.

Why 'dense'?

The creator's word for a salad with no filler lettuce — everything in the bowl is substance. That's also why it scores well: beans bring fiber and protein, vegetables bring water and volume, and nothing is there just for bulk.

Why this score

solidly filling

No single route carries this one — a moderate amount of protein, volume and fiber.

Three routes to fullness — one is enough

34% of kcal

76% water

20 g/Mcal

What pulls it down

Nothing here converges the way engineered food does — no sugar, no savoury and no alcohol penalty.

How scores work

Computed on the finished dish, not an average of the parts: 1763 kcal goes into the pot, 1516 g of ingredients comes out as ~1510 g of food → 117 kcal per 100 g. Cooking moves water, and energy density is the score's biggest lever — so we show the math. Full formula here.

Per

Calories: 117
Protein: (34%); 10 g
Fat: (35%); 5 g
Carbohydrates: (31%); 9 g
of which sugar: 2 g
Fiber: 2 g
Sodium: 213 mg

Percentages are the share of calories from each macronutrient.

Computed from the ingredients' USDA data — nothing typed by hand. Every number is traceable, every score recomputable.

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Photo: AI-generated. Nutrition and score are computed from the ingredients with the published formula — this recipe hasn't been kitchen-tested by us yet.