Fresh Green Beans
I love cooking fresh green beans! And this tutorial will show you how to cook those green beans so they taste divine! 4 ingredients is all that is needed to make this fresh bean recipe. The perfect complement to any dinner you whip up.
If you are on the hunt for a fresh green bean recipe, you might enjoy this one. No complicated steps, no fuss. Just simple ingredients that offer big flavor.
Ingredients:
- Fresh beans
- butter
- salt
- pepper
How to Make
Break the ends off of each bean and then break them into bite sized pieces.
Discard the ends or feed ’em to your chickens.
Don’t have chickens? Go get at least three or four hens before proceeding to the next step.
Just kidding.
Place all of these beans in a pot of water along with a stick of butter. Place this over medium high heat and cook until the water cooks down almost completely, stirring from time to time. This is also where you would add some minced garlic if you like.
I sometimes add a heaping teaspoon, but I like garlic so you do you! There will be a little liquid left in the pot but not much at all. This will take anywhere from 10-15 minutes or more depending on how hot your pot gets.
Don’t be tempted to call the beans done before the water is cooked down.
They will be tender before that but not nearly as flavorful as they will be once they are tender all the way through and cooked down to a nice thin buttery coated sauce.
Recipe FAQs
I like to add garlic and some red pepper flakes too, depending on my mood. If I have some bacon grease handy I like to add a tablespoon or so of that as well, totally optional.
You can use frozen green beans in place of fresh if you really can’t get fresh, just promise me you’ll try it with fresh sometime, ok?
Let’s not talk about using canned green beans in this recipe, we just don’t even want to let that thought enter into our minds. 🙂 If you want to make canned green beans taste good, check out this recipe (click here).
If you are not sure what to look for when picking green beans let me help. Here you will look for bright colored beans, that don’t show a lot of brown spots. You also want the beans to be firm to touch. You should hear a snap when you bend the bean and it breaks. If it just bends it is too far gone.
You can cut off the ends of your beans. You just want to cut off the stems so you don’t get a woody texture when you eat them. If you prefer your beans not as long slice them in half. This will also help speed up the cooking time for smaller beans.
These are good with just about anything. We have been eating them as our low carb side when the kids are having rice or mashed potatoes so I like to keep a big container of them already cooked in the fridge for us.
Get the recipe for To Die For Meatloaf by clicking here.
Ingredients
- Fresh Green Beans
- 1 stick of butter
- salt and pepper
- minced garlic, red pepper flakes optional
Instructions
- Break ends of green beans off and discard. Break each bean into bite sized pieces.
- Place green beans and butter in a large pot. Cover with water.
- Bring to a boil over medium high heat (add minced garlic now if you like and a pinch of salt) and continue cooking, stirring often, until water is almost completely cooked out and beans are very tender.
- Salt and pepper to taste. And if you like red pepper flakes add them here and enjoy!
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Here are some other recipes for green beans that you may enjoy:
- Last Minute Green Beans & and Pretending to Let Go
- Sweet And Sour Green Beans
- Green Bean Casserole Rich, Creamy With The Perfect Crunch
- Creamed Beans and Taters
- French Onion green beans
So amazingly delicious!!! I added some chicken better than bouillon, onion powder, garlic powder, ground mustard!
I a man so glad to hear that you liked them Briana!!
Christy:
Simple recipes are the best! Neither my daughter nor I like to make these long list ingredient recipes. I’d like to see you write a cookbook of super simple and time tested recipes just like this green bean recipe – if you really need a recipe for that. I make mine exactly the same only we like an onion diced up in the pot. It was so refreshing to see this recipe today. Thank you!
I agree Gale!! I will have to consider that as a cookbook, I think so many people don’t realize just how simple cooking can be.
I use chicken broth instead of water to add more flavor.
This is basically the way I cook mine, but I like to cook them in chicken broth…..and I cut up a onion in mine also, and I will fry a couple of pieces of bacon, and add that too the beans, with maybe one teaspoon of the bacon grease…..(watching my fat ) or I would use it all lol….and I just cook them until they are tender and they are delicious..but I only buy WHITE HALF RUNNER beans in the summer at the markets or from the Amish….they are the best beans ever, and if you have heard of the GREASY BEAN… that’s a good one too……but very hard to find……can’t seem to find them here anywhere……
How well do these freeze? It’s just my husband and me and I’m not a good cook but like to try new, simple recipes and fix extra to freeze for future use.
Well when I saw the picture I thought no way! Those are so overcooked they must be mushy & nasty! I like my veggies to have a little fight left in ’em. After I read the comment about James Beard cooking them this way & you swearing by it I’m willing to give it a try. Serious doubts but I’ll let you know. Canned green beans? No way now how!
🙂 I can’t wait till you try them Leslie!!!
I can’t wait to try these. I’ve been making my green beans with ham and onion for years and my family just recently started leaving most of them on their plates. I had no idea there was another way to make them that didn’t taste like they were raw. Maybe they’ll start eating them again if I try it this way.
I hope you get the chance to try them soon Kim, I would love to know what your family thinks!!