Putting together a quick yet healthy breakfast can be a challenge every morning. And you often end up having the same boring butter toast with cornflakes and juice or a bowl of poha.

No matter how many interesting recipes we dig up from the internet or cookbooks, lethargy always gets in the way of our trying out something new. But here is an idea that'll put paid to your breakfast cooking woes. Just boil some beans, add a dash of greens, a bit of seasoning, and a healthy salad is ready to be served with a slice of multigrain bread. The best part about this cold salad is you can ready the ingredients beforehand and refrigerate it, and pull out the proportion you want to serve each time and toss it together.

Colourful bean salad with walnuts and feta

Ingredients:

1 cup kidney beans (rajma)
1 cup cowpea (lobia)
½ cup sweet corn
2 cups sprouts
1 shredded capsicum
1 shredded red bell pepper
1 shredded yellow bell pepper
2 Onions finely chopped
2 tbsp sliced black olives
5 crushed walnuts
1 tbsp feta cheese
1 lemon
Salt to taste
1 tbsp olive oil

Method:

Boil the kidney beans, cowpea and sweet corn separately and set aside. Soak green grams overnight to produce sprouts. In a large bowl, mix kidney beans, cowpea, sweet corn, and sprouts together. Add to it shredded bell peppers in different colours, as many as you can get, including capsicum together with chopped onion, and blend it. Then add sliced black olives, ground walnuts, and a generous sprinkling of feta cheese. Squeeze a full lemon on the mixture and sprinkle salt as per taste. Further on, dress it with olive oil. If you feel overtly creative, or wish to impress with your cooking skills you could top the salad off with sliced strawberries and sprinkle some parsley or coriander leaves. A drizzle of balsamic vinegar can do wonders to the mix.

In case you want the salad to last a week, avoid adding salt, lemon, and onion while refrigerating as they can tenderise other ingredients. It's best to add them fresh before serving. To go with the salad, you can toast a brown bread and spread some peanut butter, and have it with a glass of fresh fruit juice.

The dish is time-saving and packed with healthy nutrients, and leaves you feeling lighter and full of energy particularly on an ardent summer day. Each time you toss the salad you can change the flavour to suit your taste buds, for instance, you can give it a lemony tang, or make it zesty with some rocket leaves and balsamic vinegar. It's up to you!