Oven Roasted Green Beans Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Should green beans be cooked covered or uncovered? ›

Add the water and immediately cover. Cook covered until the beans are bright green and crisp-tender, 1 to 2 minutes. Serve. Add the red pepper flakes, if using, and serve immediately.

Fresh green beans do not need to be soaked. To help tenderize the beans, blanch them in a large pot of salted water.

After the green beans are boiled, remove them from the pot and strain them through a colander and then immediately pour them into your buttered pan. Season the green beans with salt and pepper.

Add green beans to pan and sauté over medium heat for 2 minutes, stirring frequently. Add boiling water to pan and cover. Cook for about 15 minutes, just until beans are tender. Add vinegar, butter and salt and pepper and stir.

If your green beans are tough after roasting it most likely means one of two things. Either the green beans you used were a bit too mature and tough (this method is best with slender green beans, especially haricots verts, or French green beans) or you didn't cook them long enough.

Spices and Herbs that Pair Perfectly with String Beans (These are Organic Too): Garlic (minced, powder or granules) Onion (minced, powder or granules) Parsley as a finisher with some lemons squeezed on top.

Overnight Soaking

To soak beans the traditional way, cover them with water by 2 inches, add 2 tablespoons coarse kosher salt (or 1 tablespoon fine salt) per pound of beans, and let them soak for at least 4 hours or up to 12 hours. Drain them and rinse before using.

When properly cooked, green beans should still have a crisp texture, and a vibrant, bright green color. As discussed above, overcooked green beans can be identified by their drab, olive-green color and their mushy texture. Overcooking can also cause nutrient loss.

"If you rinse your beans thoroughly, you will have a consistently flavored product, but if you do not rinse them, different amounts of salt will remain in the dish each time you cook it, and it will be hard to cook consistently," he says.

The key to the best beans is to master how long to boil green beans. Cook the green beans, covered, in a small amount of boiling salted water until crisp-tender: 10 to 15 minutes for whole or cut green beans. 5 to 10 minutes for french-cut green beans.

Do you salt water when cooking green beans? ›

Using a high concentration of salt in the blanching water (2 tablespoons per quart of water) allows the green beans to tenderize rapidly, so their bright green color is preserved. The large amount of salt in the blanching water penetrates the beans' sturdy skins to season them more fully than smaller amounts would.

The vegetable helps fight inflammation and is a good source of folate and potassium, which helps regulate blood pressure. Green beans also are a good source of protein and fiber, which helps lower cholesterol, Vadiveloo said. "Fiber is underconsumed by U.S. adults and children, and it's good for gut health," she said.

A little butter, minced garlic, and lemon-pepper seasoning are all you need to bring the best out of fresh green beans.

Your Beans Will Cook Faster

Well, creating an alkaline (or basic) environment by adding a small amount (about 1 teaspoon per cup of dry beans) of baking soda to your soaking/cooking water can actually help your beans cook faster.

Put a pan of salted water on to boil. Meanwhile, trim the the beans. Once the water is boiling, steam or boil the beans until tender. Drain well, then tip the cooked beans into the bowl with your dressing and toss everything together, making sure all the beans get coated.

2-5 minutes boiled (never wait for the green to leach into the water), 5-6 minutes steamed or 3 minutes sauteed in garlic and olive oil should yield firm, delicious, iron rich veggies. Sliced squashes on the other hand, are hard to overcook and retain their sweetness very well.