Sauteed Green Beans

These are the best sautéed green beans: an easy side dish packed with flavor! Here’s the trick to searing them to perfection.

If you ask us, light green beans are a bit underrated. But they do perfect Side dish: delicious, healthy and easy to prepare. They’re great steamed or fried, but what’s the easiest way to prepare them? Sauteed Green Beans! It might sound too easy, but you’ll need a few tricks to sauté green beans to perfection. This recipe is our tried and true method that works every time. It’s easy to make for a weekday but chic enough for a party. Here’s what you need to know!

How to sauté green beans

Of course you can just put the green beans directly into a pan and fry them. But here’s the thing: the pan will start to dry out before the beans are fully cooked. Best fried green beans? First steam in the pan, then finish with a sauté. This method works great with tougher vegetables like roasted broccoli or sautéed broccoli. Here are the basic steps for sautéing green beans:

• Steam. Put the beans in a saucepan with some water. Cook covered for 4 minutes over medium heat.
• Boil the water. Remove the lid and cook until the remaining water has evaporated, about 1 minute.
• Skip ! Now that the beans are tender, add the olive oil or butter and sauté the beans until tender but still light green, 2 minutes!

Go for bright green and tender crunch: avoid overcooking!

The biggest problem most people have with chilled green beans? They sell them. Even a minute or two too long and the beans will turn dark green and limp. They’ll taste good, but the texture isn’t as desirable. Here are some tips to avoid overcooking green beans:

• Try often. As soon as you see the beans soften, pull out a bean with a fork and taste it! If it’s too crispy, keep going. Keep trying until you get it where you want it.
• sin on the early side. When in doubt, shoot sooner rather than later. Even a few minutes can make green beans mushy: and nobody likes that!

Sauteed Green Bean Seasoning

What does it take to season sautéed green beans? Very few even! Green beans pair well with simple flavors, so you don’t need much to spice them up. What you need for this recipe:

• Salt and pepper. This is 100% the most important thing! You need to salt your beans to perfection. This means that when you bite into it, it tastes spicy but not salty. Just like cooking, it is necessary to taste to bring it to the right level.
• lemon juice and zest. Lemon green beans are always delicious! We used both lemon juice and zest here, but you can omit the zest if you’d like. Fresh citrus fruits quiet makes the beans taste fantastic. We use the lemon juice finishing trick in many of our wok recipes.

How to cut green beans

Do you ever feel like it lasts quiet cutting green beans? Here’s a quick way to do just that so you don’t waste too much time prepping these chilled green beans. The best way we found to prune green beans quickly is as follows:

• Align them: Take a handful (about 15-20 beans) and then place them on the cutting board. Work quickly and make an even stack with everyone lined up lengthwise. They don’t all have to be aligned the same way, or they can be if you want. For this recipe we just cut off the stem ends and left the other end uncut.
• Cut off one end: Line up all ends against the edge of your knife. Take them with one hand and cut off the ends with a knife.
• Flip and slice the other (optional): When you’re cutting the beans into bite sizes, quickly flip the beans the other way, then push them toward the blade of your knife so the other ends line up. Grab the stack and cut off the other ends.

store leftovers

Sautéed green beans are absolutely gorgeous and bright green right out of the box. But beware ! Storage is a game changer:

• The green color will fade in the fridge. Even though the beans turn a dark green color, they still taste great! So it shouldn’t be a problem unless you plan to serve them to guests. We recommend that you do not prepare this recipe in advance!
• Green beans will keep in the fridge for up to 3 days. Put them in a sealed container and they might be good for even longer.
• How do you preserve the color of green beans? wash them! Go to Salade niçoise and follow the instructions for preparing the green beans.

Green Bean Diet

Final Point: Why Eat Green Beans? Well they are full of good things! Like many green vegetables, green beans have what your body needs to fuel you throughout the day. Here are some of the highlights (source):

• Green beans are a low-calorie food. 1 cup of raw green beans contains only 31 calories.
• Green beans contain fiber. 1 cup of raw beans contains 2.7 grams of fiber, or about 8% of your daily requirement.
• Green beans are high in vitamin C and other vitamins. 1 cup of raw beans contains about 25% of your daily vitamin C intake.

More green bean recipes

Green beans are a delicious way to fill up your vegetable table! Here are some other favorite green bean recipes:

This Sauteed Green Beans recipe is…

Vegetarian, vegan, plant-based, dairy-free and gluten-free.