Green Beans Recipe | How To Cook Green Beans

Green Beans Recipe: The green bean is a legume that is eaten with the skin and all, just like the Haricot Vertes, Pronkers, long beans and string beans. Green beans are often eaten in Dutch cuisine. They are easy to prepare; stir-frying, wok, steaming, stewing and of course cooking.

How To Cook Green Beans?

As you can see, cooking green beans can be done for many applications and in several ways. Steaming is also a type of cooking which we will not cover here, but the steaming time is about 10 minutes for al dente.

Below we will further discuss the cooking of the various applications and give tips for a delicious green bean dish.

Green beans can also be prepared in other ways such as woks, stir-frying and stewing. If you want to know more about this, read our blog ‘ How to cut and prepare green beans? ‘ and you know all about cooking green beans.

Green Beans Recipe

Cooking green beans is the most common way of preparing green beans. Cooking is easy to do and very tasty with the right spices.

Now on to the cooking:

1. Place a pan with plenty of water on the heat source and bring the water to a boil. Do not put salt in the water. Salt makes the skin hard and tough, so don’t do it.
2. When the water boils, the cleaned green beans go into the pan of boiling water. Now cook the green beans for 10-12 minutes.
3. Pierce a green bean with a fork to check for doneness. The fork should go in easily for it to be cooked.
4. Now drain the green beans in a colander.

The easiest way to season is with a knob of vegetable butter and a little salt and pepper.

Cooking Green Beans For Stir-frying

When green beans are further processed, for example in a stir-fry dish or wok, it is wise to cook the green beans first. Only stir-frying or stir-frying green beans takes a very long time. Cooking first shortens the further cooking time.

For cooking green beans for stir-frying, you can follow the above method as described in the chapter ‘Cooking green beans’. However, the cooking time is about 8 minutes. Also leave out the seasoning when you further process the green beans.

Green Beans Cooking Herbs

For the seasoning of green beans, read our blog ‘ Which herbs for green beans? ‘ and you always have green beans that taste good. Here we give an easy way to flavor your green beans.

The easiest way to season boiled green beans is as follows. For 4 people you need:

• 1 tsp mustard 
• 5 tbsp lemon juice 
• 1 tbsp olive oil 
• pinch salt and pepper 
• 1 tsp sugar 

Cook the green beans al dente as described above. When the green beans are al dente, you can add a dressing of lemon juice, a dash of oil and a teaspoon of mustard, but that is to taste and a little sugar to soften the sourness. If you don’t like mustard, leave it out. It also tastes great without it.

Make the dressing in a bowl, mixing well until the oil is incorporated. Pour this over the drained beans in the pan. Reheat a little when it has cooled down too much and serve! 

Green Beans Cooking In Microwave

Cooking green beans in the microwave works very well. We Dutch prefer to put on a pan with water, but the microwave is actually easier and faster. To get you started, the following method for cooking green beans in the microwave.

1. Watch the video above for washing and cutting the green beans.
2. Then put the green beans in a microwave dish
3. Then 30 milliliters of water goes into the bowl and we cover this bowl with the lid or microwave foil.
4. Set the microwave to the highest setting and cook the green beans for 3-4 minutes until al dente.
5. Pierce the green beans with a fork to check if they are cooked. The fork should go in easily.

The green beans can now be seasoned with just a knob of vegetable butter, salt and pepper. Or spice them up your own way.

How long to cook green beans?

How Long To Cook Green Beans For Baby

For a baby from about 6 months, cooking green beans is different again. The cooking time is longer and no salt is added. What do you need and how does it work for 1 baby snack.

• 75-100 grams of potatoes, this is usually a small potato, peeled.
• 100 grams green beans, cleaned.
• knob of vegetable butter.

The method of preparation:

1. Peel the potatoes and clean the green beans. See the video above.
2. Place a pan of water on the heat source and bring the water to a boil.
3. Now boil the potatoes and green beans for 15 minutes and then drain.
4. Now put it in the mixer with a knob of vegetable butter and make a smooth whole.
5. Do not put all the potatoes in the mixer at once. Keep a little bit on hand and see if the snack is to your liking. You can always add the rest of the potato.

Blanching green beans

Blanching is the final method of cooking. This is done when we want to freeze green beans for storage.

Blanching is cooking briefly and cooling down quickly. The short cooking time kills the bacteria and the rapid cooling stops the cooking process.

How does blanching work?

1. Clean the green beans as shown in the video above.
2. Place a pan with plenty of water on the heat source and bring the water to a boil.
3. Also prepare a large bowl with ice water. Don’t have ice cubes? Then set the colander ready in the sink.
4. When the water boils, the green beans go into the water. Bring the water back to a boil. Boil the green beans for 3 minutes.
5. Drain the green beans in the colander and immediately put them in the ice water.
6. Don’t have ice water? Then rinse the green beans under the tap for a long time until they are cold.
7. Pat the green beans dry and put them in a freezer bag that you place in the freezer compartment. The beans will remain good for at least 12 months.

Speaking of preserving, check out our blog on preserving green beans; ‘ How to store green beans? ‘. Then you can store prepared and fresh green beans for next time. Throwing it away is a sin!

Blanched Green Beans Cooking

Green beans that have been blanched must also be cooked again. Most importantly, don’t let your green beans thaw. The green beans go straight from the freezer into the pan of boiling water. If you let them thaw first, they will become limp and the green bean will lose its structure and texture. So from the freezer into the boiling water.

Bring the water back to the boil and cook the green beans for 8-10 minutes until al dente.

For a detailed explanation about cooking beans, see the first chapter of this blog ‘Cooking Green Beans’.

Now you know all about how long to cook green beans. I hope your cooking method is there.

Do you want to know more about many types of beans? Then take a look at our blog ’17 types of beans ‘. Fun and informative to read.