White Bean, Feta and Quick-Pickled Celery Salad 

By Hetty Lui McKinnon

Published June 3, 2025

White Bean, Feta and Quick-Pickled Celery Salad 
Armando Rafael for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Brett Regot.
Total Time
30 minutes
Prep Time
10 minutes
Cook Time
20 minutes
Rating
5(1,561)
Comments
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Pickling celery for just fifteen minutes is a game changer: The acid tames its grassy notes, brings out savoriness and transforms its texture from simply crunchy to crisp-tender. Here, celery is quickly pickled with red onion to create a sweet-and-sour foundation for this hearty cannellini bean salad. The cumin seeds are optional, but they add a deeply earthy and aromatic edge to the pickles; feel free to substitute or experiment with other whole spices such as caraway, coriander, fennel or star anise. Creamy and salty feta balances the sharpness of the pickles. This is a great no-cook dish for easy weeknight eating, but it also improves with age, so can be made ahead for potlucks, picnics or other gatherings.

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Ingredients

Yield:4 to 6 servings
  • 4celery stalks, trimmed and thinly sliced
  • ½small red onion, thinly sliced
  • ¼cup white or red wine vinegar
  • 1tablespoon sugar
  • 1teaspoon cumin seeds (optional) 
  • Salt and pepper
  • 2(15-ounce) cans cannellini beans, rinsed
  • 7 to 8ounces crumbled feta
  • 1cup chopped tender herbs, such as mint, parsley, cilantro, dill or a mix 
  • ¼cup extra-virgin olive oil
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (6 servings)

355 calories; 17 grams fat; 6 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 8 grams monounsaturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 36 grams carbohydrates; 8 grams dietary fiber; 3 grams sugars; 16 grams protein; 910 milligrams sodium

Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.

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Preparation

  1. Step 1

    Place the celery and red onion in a large bowl. Add the vinegar, sugar, cumin seeds (if using) and about ½ teaspoon of salt. Toss well to combine, then set aside to pickle for 15 minutes.

  2. Step 2

    Add the cannellini beans, feta and herbs to the celery and red onion. Drizzle with the olive oil, season well with salt and pepper and toss well to combine. Serve at room temperature. (The salad can be prepared and refrigerated up to 1 day in advance.)

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Ratings

5 out of 5
1,561 user ratings
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Comments

Dianne

Delicious! I followed reader comments, and cut back the sugar to 2 teaspoons. Added just a little bit of fennel to the pickling process. Added lots of mint. Note to the editors: on all your recipes that indicate the number of servings, kindly indicate how many cups in a serving according to your recipe. Serving size is so subjective.

Jennie

@Stephen in AP It's still hard IMO when you don't know, for example, the size of the celery stalks or onion. A small onion to me may be a medium onion to everyone else cuz I love onion! I would really prefer to see a volume or weight measurement for items that are not uniform in size. So how many cups are the 4 stalks of celery supposed to yield? Thank you!

Meg

I break, not cut, the stalk in half. Any strings tough enough not to break, get pulled off. Anything tender enough to break along with the stalk is tender enough to eat.

JG

So easy to make. It looked just like the picture. People loved it and all wanted the leftovers.

Linda in Montreal

I really, really enjoyed this. I cook for one, so I only added enough feta for the serving I was going to eat right away. I refrigerated the rest. I add feta each time I had some. That worked really well. I didn't find it actually wanted quite as much feta as the quantity listed in the recipe. I will be making this a third time tonight.

fruitfarmer

The cumin seed pickled veg are DELICIOUS. This is now a staple technique/flavor profile for marinated salads in our household. Endlessly versatile, depending on what veg you want to marinate together. This is one of the few NYT recipes that doesn't disappoint.

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