This Viral Salad "Formula" Is All The Rage On TikTok, And After Speaking With The Creator Behind It, I 10,000% Understand Why
Many people, including myself, consider meal prepping a lofty ambition reserved for the ultra-organized — but for Violet Witchel, it's a prerequisite for a balanced lifestyle. Nearly every week, this viral food influencer updates her followers on what meals she has prepped in the fridge for the days ahead. One meal prep item she became known for this year is her mega-popular dense bean salad, aka the "DBS."
Earlier this year, Violet shot into the food influencer limelight with her antipasto-inspired, sun-dried tomato DBS video, which has 8.5 million views on TikTok alone.
Violet Witchel / TikTok / Via tiktok.com
With over 93 million likes on TikTok and over 83,000 subscribers to her Substack, people clearly love her make-it-ahead culinary content.
Violet has become so well known for her meal-prep recipes that the internet has dubbed her "dense bean salad girl." She has confidently embraced the identity, making it her TikTok profile bio.
Her salad-making tutorials have received overwhelmingly positive feedback. Recently, lifestyle influencer Amanda Rollins posted on TikTok from her kitchen, saying, "To the girl who came up with the dense bean salad idea, I owe you my life... this is my favorite thing in the entire world."
A young woman with PCOS also thanked Violet Witchel for her DBS recipes, posting a TikTok addressed specifically to her, saying, "As someone with hormonal issues, I need to be eating a salad every day... this is my thank you from me to you; you literally saved my health."
The dense bean salad has become one of 2024's hottest FoodTok trends — clearly, for good reason. This make-ahead, fridge-friendly salad formula is loaded with plant-based protein (yes, beans!) and a mix of nutritious, hearty ingredients like fresh vegetables and meats. Violet dubbed these salads "dense" because they are filling and designed to keep you energized for hours, unlike greens-based salads that often leave you unsatisfied.
Other FoodTok trends can be impractical and require uncommon ingredients or kitchen gadgets, but bean salads are adaptable and affordable. Violet Witchel has been ahead of this legume trend, sharing her tried-and-true bean salad recipes on TikTok for years, though the trending name "dense bean salad" didn't come until more recently.
Her salads' flavor profiles range from "buffalo chicken" to "marinated feta" and "miso edamame," proving that meal prep doesn't have to be boring to be consistent. The salads require varying amounts of time and effort. Some weeks, Violet marinates chicken overnight and breaks out the grill. Other times, she keeps it simple with a grocery-store rotisserie chicken or omits meat from the salad entirely. The trend is all about flexibility and approachability for meal-preppers.
In a conversation with Violet, she told BuzzFeed that her meal-prepping routine "makes it really easy for [her] to be consistent in [her] diet."
She mentioned her incredibly relatable struggle to find time to cook during the week, sharing, "By the time I’m hungry, I don’t always want to cook; I just want to order Uber Eats or make boxed mac 'n' cheese."
As a former student-athlete, Violet has prioritized eating well and mindfully since college and, over time, found that "having something easy, healthy, and delicious to grab out of the fridge that [she's] excited to eat makes it easy to prioritize healthy choices as a part of [her] routine."
So, now you know why so much of the internet is obsessed with them, but what exactly goes into a DBS? Violet shared her formula for her salads with us: "The bean salad blueprint typically consists of two types of beans to mix up the color and texture, a vinegar-based dressing, an herb, a crunchy vegetable, a cheese, a softer vegetable, and a pickled, fermented, or canned element."
She also noted that she considers her followers' suggestions and what produce is in season when deciding what exactly to make.
Take her Buffalo Chicken DBS, for example. She adds buffalo sauce-marinated chicken to a cannellini bean and chickpea base and complements them with fresh flavors using grilled corn, chopped radishes, and cilantro and tosses it all together with a rice vinegar dressing and jack cheese.
You can find the full recipe for the Buffalo Chicken DBS in Violet's Substack newsletter.
According to her recipe, one serving of this salad packs a whopping 70 grams of protein. To put that into perspective, you'd have to eat eleven eggs to get the same amount of protein as a bowl of this DBS.
Applying the "DBS formula'" to this recipe shows how simple meal prepping can be when you have a plan. Just choose an ingredient you enjoy for each category, add extra protein as needed, and experiment with different seasonings.
Although dense bean salads are trending in 2024, they’re by no means "new." Legumes have been a staple in many global cuisines for centuries, serving as a vital source of nutrients and protein.
The Mediterranean Dish / Via themediterraneandish.com, Cookie and Kate / Via cookieandkate.com
Violet's salads are the latest stop in the mighty bean's ride through food history and culture. Other iterations of the bean salad include balela, a chickpea salad with many variations found in Egypt and other parts of the Middle East.
Another stop in the history of bean salads is succotash, a North American lima bean and corn stew (often served as a salad). The name originates from the Narragansett word “msikquatash,” which refers to a simmering stew of corn. Sometimes, the dish is cooked with meat, such as pork renderings or turkey, but it can also be made vegetarian, like this version.
Inspired by the past and present of bean salads, I raided my fridge and pantry to create my version of the DBS using Violet's formula as a guide.
I have to say, I was SO STOKED by the results of this versatile DBS recipe inspired by the tastes of fall.
Here are all the components I chose to build my Fall-Feelies DBS and a full list of ingredients:
INGREDIENTS:
For the base:
3 cups of cooked, soaked chickpeas (about two cans)**
1/2 a head of green, savoy, or Napa cabbage, thinly sliced
3 ears of corn (about 1 1/2 cups of corn kernels)
1/2 cup of semi-hard cheese, sliced into thin strips or cubes
1 whole acorn squash, peeled and cubed (Optional: reserve the seeds to roast for the DBS!)
2 teaspoons of warm spice blend (garam masala, pumpkin spice mix, chai spice mix, e.g.)
2 tablespoons of neutral oil
2 tablespoons of chopped dill
2 tablespoons of chopped parsley
2 tablespoons of chopped chives
Salt, as desired
For the apple cider vinaigrette:
1/4 cup of lemon juice (roughly 1 lemon's worth of juice)
1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar
2 tablespoons of maple syrup
1 tablespoon of grated ginger
1/4 teaspoon of cracked black pepper
1 teaspoon, of kosher salt
1/2–3/4 cup of neutral oil
Toppings:
Red sauerkraut
Chopped pear
**A quick note: if you're looking to maximize savings with your meal prep, buy dried beans and soak them yourself!
Canned chickpeas cost an average of $0.25 to $0.375 per 100 grams, while dried chickpeas cost just $0.067 to $0.10 for the same amount.
If you're stressed about the extra time soaking beans requires every time you want to cook with them, soak a big batch all at once, drain, and freeze in portions so they're ready to go for the next time you want to make a bean dish. Canned beans will still work in a pinch, though!
And, here are the step-by-step instructions to make the "fall-feelies" DBS yourself:
INSTRUCTIONS:
1. Preheat the oven to 400 °F.
2. Place the cubed squash onto a parchment-lined sheet tray with the oil and spice mix, tossing the squash with your fingers to evenly distribute the spices and oil. Add salt as desired. Bake for 30 minutes or until the squash is tender and beginning to brown. Set aside.
Optional: Rinse the squash flesh from the reserved seeds and pat dry with a towel. Toss the seeds with a little oil and some more of your spice mix. Halfway through the squash roasting process, add the seeds to the sheet tray and roast.
Once your squash is in the oven, roast and prep your corn!
3. Place your ears of corn, husk-on, in the oven for 20 minutes. Allow them to cool for about 15 minutes before removing the husks and cutting the kernels from the cob. Set aside.
Next: Make this simple apple cider vinaigrette!
4. Make the vinaigrette by whisking together grated ginger, apple cider vinegar, lemon juice, maple syrup, black pepper, and salt in a bowl with a spout or liquid measuring cup. Slowly stream the oil into the vinegar mixture while whisking constantly. Once you've added 1/2 a cup of oil, taste for acidity. If the dressing is too acidic, add more oil.
And just like that, it's time to assemble!
5. In a large bowl, combine roasted squash (and optional roasted seeds), chickpeas, corn kernels, sliced cabbage, cheese, and herbs. Dress the salad with 1/4 cup of vinaigrette and taste. Add more vinaigrette as desired.
It's best served (in my opinion) with sauerkraut and chopped pear. Violet often eats her DBSs in a tortilla wrap, so that's worth a try, too!
Finally, I have a use for my extensive peanut butter and jam jar collection! I portioned the bean salad into four jars and a deli-quart container for roughly six servings to eat throughout the week.
The salad can be stored in tightly sealed containers for up to five days.
So, will you start meal-prepping with a big bowl of beans like Violet and me? Let us know in the comments below! I'm off to crack into my fourth jar of DBS...
You can follow Violet on Instagram and TikTok for future DBS and meal-prepping content and subscribe to her Substack newsletter here.
