Sautéed Green Beans with Garlic

Sautéed Green Beans with crispy bits of garlic is an easy, classic preparation for a green beans side dish. It’s a life essential recipe that will serve you well for the rest of your days!

Green beans – Look for fresh perky ones, not sad and floppy ones speckled with black dots.
Garlic – Two smallish cloves or one large one. Finely mince the garlic using a knife. Do not use a garlic press/crusher. This makes the garlic go wet and pasty so you won’t get nice golden bits, like pictured. In fact, the garlic will just spit when it hits the skillet.
As for jarred garlic paste? Not on my watch! This stuff doesn’t really taste like garlic and it’s oddly sour due to the preserving agents. Plus it’s wet so it too will spit like crazy.
Olive oil or butter, if you’d like a buttery flavour on your beans. If you want to dial up the butter factor, use clarified butter / ghee instead!

Ingredients

250g/ 8oz green beans , trimmed (Note 1)
1 tsp salt

FOR SAUTÉING:
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (or… butter!)
2 garlic cloves , finely minced (~ 2 tsp), do not use jar or garlic crusher (Note 2)
1/8 tsp salt
1 pinch black pepper

TIP

Prepare ahead:

Blanch beans per step 1, cool and dry, store in fridge until required. When ready to serve, just toss with garlic. It’s an instant on-demand side!

Method.

Blanch beans:

Bring a large saucepan of water to the boil with 1 teaspoon of salt.
Add beans, cook for 4 minutes (they will turn bright green), drain, then rinse under cold tap water to cool. (There’s really no need to shock in ice water).
Shake off excess water.

Sauté:

Heat oil in a large pan over medium high heat. Add green beans and garlic. Toss (or stir!) for 2 minutes until the garlic is golden and crispy. Add salt and pepper, then toss.

Serve: