This bean salad with edamame is full of delicious soy flavor, crisp vegetables, and plant-based protein. High protein edamame, black eyes peas, finely diced purple cabbage, micro chopped cucumber, and other flavors are tossed in a delicious soy sauce dressing for a high protein dense bean salad recipe you’ll come back to every week!

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Bean Salad With Edamame

A dense bean salad recipe is one of my favorite, healthy lunch recipes to prep and have in my refrigerator. It not only helps me eat more vegetables, but dense bean salads also increase my intake of plant-based protein and high fiber foods all in one delicious, ready to enjoy salad thats in your refrigerator!

While there are tons of high protein dense bean salads recipes to choose from, this soy bean salad with edamame is one that I come back to time and time again.

Frozen edamame beans, black eyes peas, and micro-chopped cucumber and red cabbage provide a colorful and healthy dense bean salad base that is flavored with herbs, green onions, crunchy peanuts, and a delicious soy dressing that pulls together all of the refreshing flavors.

This recipe is perfect paired with grilled chicken, served as a healthy side dish, or can be enjoyed as a high protein lunch throughout your week. If you have been wanting to get onto the dense bean salad recipe train, this is the bean salad recipe you should start with!

Let’s get to the recipe:

A vibrant salad with purple cabbage, edamame, peanuts, cucumber, and green onions, garnished with lime slices and sesame seeds in a white bowl.

Why you’ll love this edamame bean salad:

You’ll love dense bean salad recipe because it is:

Made with frozen edamame beans: This bean salad with edamame is incredibly easy to make because it uses one whole bag of frozen edamame shells! Simply pour it right into your bean salad recipe, add your other ingredients, stir in your dressing, then let it sit overnight!
Customizable: Feel free to add other vegetables or beans to this bean salad recipe. You can easily toss in diced red bell peppers, sugar snap peas, finely diced broccoli, or swap the black eyes peas out for white beans or cannellini beans.
Full of flavor: Freshly chopped cabbage, cucumber, and fresh herbs are all coated in a delicious soy dressing for an asian inspired bean salad recipe that you’ll love.
Loaded with plant-based protein: Dense bean salads are a great lunch, snack, or side dish recipe that are loaded with protein. For this bean salad, edamame shells and black eyes peas both contain plant based protein and boost the total protein content of the recipe!
High in fiber: While protein is important, fiber is equally important for our heart, digestive, and overall health. Both edamame, black eyed peas, and raw vegetables boost the fiber content and can help you meet your daily goals.
Don’t worry, the raw vegetables soften in the soy dressing to turn this into a marinated bean salad recipe that is softer on digestion.
Diverse: You can enjoy this edamame bean salad with topped with air fryer teriyaki salmon or thinly sliced chicken, as a colorful addition to a shrimp and rice bowl, or you can eat it as a meal prepped and high protein lunch recipe throughout your week. Just prep it and enjoy it with many meals!

This edamame bean salad recipe is one of my favorite meal prep lunch recipes to make and I love having it ready to go in my refrigerator throughout the week!

A vibrant salad in a white bowl with red cabbage, edamame, cucumber, and peanuts. A wooden spoon and lime wedges add freshness and texture.

Ingredients you’ll need:

Here’s what you’ll need for your edamame bean salad:

For the bean salad base:

Frozen edamame beans: Edamame beans are the star of this bean salad show. They are full of 10 grams of protein and 4 grams of dietary fiber per serving.
We are going to keep the edamame beans frozen because they are incredibly convenient to use, easy to find in the freezer section, and will defrost in the refrigerator overnight. If you want to serve this immediately, defrost your edamame beans in the microwave before adding them to the bowl.
Black eyed peas: Canned black eyed peas are a personal favorite addition to any dense bean salad recipe (like this healthy cowboy caviar recipe). They have a crisp texture thats sits well in the fridge and feature roughly 6 grams of protein and 3 grams of fiber per serving.
Purple cabbage: If there is one food that makes me feel like I am actively fighting disease in my body, it’s purple cabbage. Finely dice your purple cabbage so that it softens in the refrigerator as it sits. You can also swap the purple cabbage for green cabbage in this recipe, I just like the colors.
Cucumber: Finely diced.
Green onion: Added to taste.
Cilantro: Added to taste:
Peanuts: Optional but this adds a tasty crunch to every bite.

For the dense bean salad dressing:

Low Sodium Soy Sauce: The base of this asian dressing.
Rice Vinegar: To add a little bit of zing to your recipe.
Honey: This will add a subtle sweetness to your dressing and will balance out the acids.
Ginger paste: You can grate your own ginger or buy the tube and keep it easier.
Minced garlic: Added to taste.
Lime juice: To add fresh flavor to your dressing.

Now let’s mix this dense bean salad recipe!

**Bean Salad With Edamame**

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Bowls of cucumber, lime, green onion, cilantro, purple cabbage, peanuts, edamame, black-eyed peas, and dressing on a wooden surface.

Step by Step Instructions:

Now let’s walk through how to make this edamame bean salad:

Step 1:

Chop up your cabbage, cucumber, green onions, and cilantro. Add them to a large glass bowl then add in your frozen edamame beans, drained black eyes peas, and peanuts.

A vibrant salad with peanuts, edamame, chopped cucumbers, purple cabbage, black-eyed peas, cilantro, and green onions in a white bowl.

Step 2:

Place all of your bean salad dressing ingredients into a small glass jar then shake or stir them until fully combined.

A vibrant salad in a white bowl with purple cabbage, edamame, peanuts, cucumber, cilantro, and green onions. A small dish of dark soy dressing is nearby.

Step 3:

Pour your dressing over your dense bean salad and stir until combined. Enjoy immediately or snack on this dense bean salad recipe throughout the week as a high protein meal prep lunch, stirring it before you are ready to eat.

Fresh edamame bean salad with vibrant purple cabbage, cucumbers, peanuts, and sesame seeds in a white bowl, garnished with lime slices and green onions.

Swaps, substitutions, and suggestions:

Here are a few changes you can make to this edamame bean salad recipe:

Change your veggies: You can add other vegetables like diced red bell peppers, carrots, green cabbage,
Change your beans: I like to make this bean salad with edamame but you can swap out the black eyes peas for white beans, cannellini beans, or even garbanzo beans for a edamame garbanzo bean salad.
Use a different dressing: I added a recommended soy dressing for this recipe that really turns it into a marinated bean salad recipe. As it sits in the soy sauce, the veggies all soften and become easier to eat and digest. You can certainly swap the suggested dressing for a dressing you prefer!
Change how you serve it: You can eat bean salad recipes as a stand alone protein lunch recipe or top it with grilled chicken, add it to a bowl, or even put it into wraps.

And more! Make this recipe your own and tag me on instagram with any fun ideas you come up with!

Fresh edamame salad with vibrant purple cabbage, cucumbers, peanuts, and sesame seeds in a white bowl, garnished with lime slices, sesame seeds, green onions.

Recipe FAQ:

Are dense bean salads healthy?
1. Yes- a dense bean salad is a very healthy recipe to keep in your refrigerator. They increase your consumption of vegetables, protein, and fiber while also keeping your time free because most of them can be prepped ahead of time.
Can I use frozen edamame beans for this recipe?
1. Yes, and thats actually what I recommend doing! You can easily find bags of frozen edamame beans in the freezer section of your grocery store and the defrost very quickly in the refrigerator so that you can enjoy it.
Is edamame healthy?
1. I like to make bean salads with edamame because edamame is high in plant based protein and fiber. In fact, edamame is one of few plant-based proteins that is considered a complete protein, meaning it has all of the amino acids that you need to get from your diet.

Other lunch recipes you will love:

Looking for other lunch recipes? I have a few on my blog that I think you will love:

**Southwest Chicken Salad**

Get the recipe

**Dill Pickle Egg Salad**

Get the recipe

**Healthy Buffalo Chicken Salad Recipe**

Get the recipe

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Bean Salad With Edamame