Marinated Butter Beans & Halloumi
A delicious warm bean and cheese plate that works in nearly every situation, from lunch or drinks/appetizers to a side dish. At only 5 core ingredients, this one packs a lot of punch into a small package. NOTE: you can halve the amount of beans if you want to use it as more of an app/snack.
- Yield: Serves as many as you need it to
Ingredients
Units
Scale
- 8 to 9-ounce block Halloumi cheese, sliced into thin planks
- 3/4 cup olive oil, or more as needed (see note)
- Two 14.5-ounce cans butter beans, drained and rinsed
- 1/4 cup pickled jalapenos
- 3 garlic cloves, smashed
- Zest and juice of 1 lemon
- Salt and pepper, to taste
- Optional: chopped scallions or chives
Instructions
- Add about a tablespoon of olive oil to a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. When it’s hot, cook the halloumi slices until gorgeously golden brown on both sides; about 2 minutes per side. Transfer to your serving plate/platter and don’t wipe out the pan.
- Add the rest of the oil along with the beans, jalapeños, garlic, and lemon zest + juice. You really want the beans and things mostly submerged in that oil (see note), so you can add a little more if you want to. Season with salt and pepper and simmer over medium-low heat for 5 minutes, just to let the flavors marry. Stir very gently so as to not bust up the beans.
- Turn off the heat and transfer everything (oil included) to the serving plate with the halloumi. Alternatively, you can put the halloumi back in the pan and serve right from there.
- TO SERVE: If desired, scatter some chopped scallions or chives over top. If you’re serving as a side dish, a slotted spoon works well, allowing some of the oil to drain as you plate them up. When strained, the extra oil will save for you in a lidded container for a couple of weeks (use in salad dressings, to finish dishes, etc). As an appetizer, I like to serve these with toothpicks. Â
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Notes
NOTE: If you want to avoid using so much olive oil, feel free to go half olive oil, half other neutral cooking oil. Grapeseed and/or canola oil work great as supplemental varieties here.