Name: Sardinian Fava & Mint Salad
Prep time: 25 min
Cook time: 5 min
Total time: 30 min
Yield: 4
Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients: 1.5 kg young fava beans in the pod — about 450g podded; 80g aged pecorino sardo, shaved; 1 large bunch fresh mint, leaves only, torn; 60ml extra-virgin olive oil; 1 lemon — zest and half the juice; 2 spring onions, sliced very thin; Flaky sea salt and coarse black pepper

In the Sardinian spring, fava is everywhere — podded on doorsteps, eaten raw with a piece of pecorino and a glass of something, or blanched into a salad like this one. It is the island's defining legume, and in the mountain villages of the Barbagia it shows up on the table more often than any other protein.

It is also the only recipe on this site that comes with a real warning, and the warning is specifically Sardinian. If you have G6PD deficiency, you cannot eat this dish. Read the panel below before you cook it — and then, if it does not apply to you, make it, because it is one of the best four-ingredient plates in the Mediterranean.

Read This First

Favism: the real risk, and the folklore around it

Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency is the most common red-blood-cell enzyme disorder in the world, and its prevalence in Sardinia is unusually high — population estimates run at roughly 8–15%. In people who carry it, eating fava beans can trigger acute haemolytic anaemia. The evolutionary explanation is that the same variant offered protection against malaria, which was endemic on the island for centuries. If you have G6PD deficiency, or do not know and have a family history of favism, do not make this dish. A 2026 survey of 536 Sardinians is also worth knowing about, because it found the folklore has outrun the biology: 99% correctly named eating the beans as the trigger, but 62.5% wrongly believed inhaling the pollen was hazardous and 26% wrongly blamed peas. Only 3.9% had ever had a haemolytic crisis. The risk is real, specific, and smaller and narrower than the island's anxiety about it.

8–15%

Estimated G6PD deficiency prevalence in the Sardinian population

62.5%

Of surveyed Sardinians who wrongly believed fava pollen was a trigger

The Ingredients

1.5 kg young fava beans in the pod — about 450g podded
80g aged pecorino sardo, shaved
1 large bunch fresh mint, leaves only, torn
60ml extra-virgin olive oil
1 lemon — zest and half the juice
2 spring onions, sliced very thin
Flaky sea salt and coarse black pepper

How to Make It

Pod them, and be patient

1.5kg of pods gives about 450g of beans. This takes fifteen minutes and there is no shortcut. Put on something to listen to — in Sardinia this is a job done in company, on a doorstep.

Blanch briefly

30 seconds in well-salted boiling water, then straight into iced water. Very young beans can skip this entirely and be eaten raw; anything larger than a thumbnail wants the blanch.

Slip the skins — the step that matters

Pinch each bean and squeeze it out of its pale outer skin. It is tedious and it is not optional: the skin is tough and faintly bitter, and the difference between a peeled and unpeeled fava salad is the difference between a good dish and a chore.

Dress with your hands

Toss the beans with the olive oil, lemon zest and juice, spring onion, salt and plenty of pepper. Use your hands so you can feel when everything is coated. Let it sit ten minutes.

Mint and pecorino last

Tear in the mint and shave the pecorino over at the table. Both lose their point if they sit in dressing — the mint darkens and the cheese goes soft.