Sauteed Green Beans Recipe

Sautéed Green Beans are my go-to side dish. When I am in a hurry, and I need a vegetable, I make steam-sautéed green beans. They take about 20 minutes, end-to-end, and are mostly hands off, so I can worry more about the main dish.

[This is a rewrite of one of my go-to recipes, originally posted Dec 22, 2009]

Jump to:

• Equipment
• Ingredients notes
• Step-by-step pictures of sautéed green beans
• Trim the beans
• Beans into the pot with water, salt, pepper, and butter
• Steam for 8 minutes, then Sauté for another 3
• Steam-Sauteed Green Beans
• Variations
• Tips and Tricks
• What do you think?
• Related Posts
• 💬 Comments

We have a strange relationship with green beans in my family.  I like them; my wife loves them.
*Diane loves green beans so much that I have to make them at least every other week.  If I don't, she starts poking around in the kitchen while I'm cooking dinner, asking if we're going to have them any time soon.

The kids won't touch them; they're green.  It's just not happening.  My dad picked beans for a summer job when he was a boy, and they're his favorite vegetable.  My two brothers can't stand them.  I was talking with Pat last weekend, and he said:

"I finally subscribed to your blog by email, and what's the first one I get?  Green beans!  Why did I bother?"

Trust me when I say this is a good recipe.  As I said above, I've made it every two weeks for the last eight years.  It uses a steam/saute technique I learned from Pam Anderson's How to Cook without a Book.  In fact, Pam put this exact technique on her blog a couple of weeks ago, right after I took the pictures for this post. You can check out the original recipe here: Simple Steam-Sauteed Green Beans.

Equipment

• Medium sauce pan (3+ quarts) or fry pan with a lid

Ingredients notes

• Green beans: In the summer, I buy loose green beans at my local farmers markets or grocery store. In the winter, I have to admit that I cheat sometimes, and get one of the "microwaveable" plastic bags of green beans. They're already trimmed. I do follow this recipe with the bagged beans; they are *so* much better than microwaved beans.
• Lemon: The zest and juice of a lemon works great; don't worry to much about the specific amount of lemon juice or zest, just use what comes out of the lemon you have. (This recipe has a lot of wiggle room).
• Skip the lemon: If you're in a hurry? Skip the lemon. I won't tell.

Step-by-step pictures of sautéed green beans

Trim the beans

Trim the stems off the green beans. (I leave them whole, but if you want, you can cut them into 2-inch lengths.

Beans into the pot with water, salt, pepper, and butter

Everything in the pot (except the lemon, which tastes better if you add it at the end).

Steam for 8 minutes, then Sauté for another 3

Cover the pot, turn the heat to medium-high, and start a 6 minute timer when steam starts escaping from under the lid. After 6 minutes, remove the lid. If there is any water, let it boil off, then sauté the beans in the melted butter for a minute. (You'll hear the beans start to sizzle when the water is boiled away - it is usually gone after the 6 minutes with the lid on). Squeeze the lemon over the beans and toss to coat with the lemon and butter. Pour into a serving bowl or platter, sprinkle with the lemon zest, serve, and enjoy!

Print

Variations

• I'm in a hurry: Skip the lemon - just use beans, salt, pepper and butter.
• I want vegan beans: Skip the butter and use olive oil
• I want garlic: Yes! Add a crushed or minced clove of garlic to the pot with the beans.
• I want to be really healthy: Cut the butter back to 1 teaspoon.  I wouldn't eliminate it entirely.  Even a little butter adds a big hit of flavor to the beans.
• I want semi-stir-fried beans: Add 2 cloves of minced garlic with the green beans, substitute ¼ cup soy sauce for ¼ cup of the water, and substitute 2 teaspoons vegetable oil and 1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil for the butter. (You can also skip the lemon).
• Other citrus: Orange beans? Substitute half an orange and its zest for the lemon. Lime beans? Use two limes instead of one lemon. Grapefruit beans? Yes, they taste great - I'd use a couple of tablespoons of grapefruit juice and about a tablespoon of zest.
• Other spices: Salt and pepper are too bland for you? Use a teaspoon of your favorite rub instead of the fresh ground black pepper. (If the rub has salt in it, skip the salt in the recipe). Try my SPG seasoning, All-Purpose Seasoning, Cajun rub, or Homemade BBQ rub.

Tips and Tricks

• Trimming green beans: I grab a handful, line them all up with the stem side facing in the same direction, then push the bunch of beans up against my knife to get the stems in a line. This makes it easy to chop the stems off a bunch of beans in one slice.
• Double (or triple) the recipe: I make a big batch of beans for holidays and dinners. I double (or triple) the recipe and steam-saute in my dutch oven instead of a pot. Or, I use the make-ahead instructions below.
• Make ahead: Only add the beans, water and salt, and finish through step 1.  Drain the beans and refrigerate them up to two days. (I put them in a ziploc bag in the refrigerator). 15 minutes before you're ready to serve them, heat the tablespoon of butter in a fry pan over medium high heat until the butter stops foaming.  Add the beans, and saute for a couple of minutes, stirring often, until the beans are heated through and starting to brown.  Add the garlic and cook for a minute or two, or until you just start to smell the garlic. Add pepper, taste to see if you need to add a little more salt, squeeze the juice of half a lemon over them, and serve.
• Browning the beans: The Sauté the Beans step depends on how much you like browning on your green beans. I like to get some browned color on my beans, so I'll do the sauté step until I get browning. The time moves around depending on how carefully I measured the water at the start of the recipe. I usually eyeball the water instead of getting out the measuring cup, so sometimes I have extra water to boil off to get my browning.
• Or, don't brown the beans: In a hurry? Skip the sauté step if you don't care about browning on the beans. Keep the lid on until the beans are tender, then serve immediately.

What do you think?

Questions? Other ideas? Leave them in the comments section below.

Related Posts

Sauteed Swiss Chard
Guest Post on Black Iron Dude: Grilled Green Beans
Barbecued Frozen Corn
Grilled Green Beans Recipe

Adapted from: Pam Anderson, How to Cook Without a Book

Enjoyed this post? Want to help out DadCooksDinner? Subscribe to DadCooksDinner via email and share this post with your friends. Want to contribute directly? Donate to my Tip Jar, or buy something from Amazon.com through the links on this site. Thank you.