Garlic roasted green beans are an easy, versatile side dish. Serve them along side your favorite main dishes anytime or put them on the table as part of your holiday spread for Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Easter.
Garlic Roasted Green Beans
Green beans are one of the most underrated side dishes out there if you ask my humble opinion.
Everyone is all about the trendy vegetables these days. Asparagus. Brussel sprouts. Kale. Cauliflower. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve hopped on board those bandwagons too and found delicious things to do with each of them. Yes, even kale.
But not a single one of those vegetables has that nostalgia that green beans have. Green beans were a staple side dish growing up and always make their way onto my table at the holidays.
While yes, growing up, it was all about green beans out of a can or boiled fresh green beans when we would go pick our own, these green beans are kicked up a notch.
Garlic Roasted Green Beans
I guess you could say I made them trendy because I roasted them in garlic. And roasting vegetables seems to be where it’s at these days. It’s what you do to the not cool vegetables to make them worthy of the cool veggies.
Why roast vegetables like green beans?
Garlic Roasted Green Beans
Roasting vegetables, including green beans, makes them really yummy. It will turn even the biggest veg hater into a veg appreciator. According to Chowhound, roasting vegetables in the dry heat of an oven caramelizes the sugars in them. Green beans have 3.3 grams of sugar per 1 cup serving. The caramelization gives the beans a nice nutty flavor that is more interesting than the flavor of steamed or boiled green beans.
Then let’s talk texture. Ever notice if you boil green beans there’s a very fine line between done and soggy? Roasting them keeps a bit of the bite to them but makes them crispy and crunchy. So if you’re a texture person like me, you don’t have to shudder at any weird mushy parts when you roast green beans.
Making Garlic Roasted Green Beans
Beans being tossed with olive oil and garlic
Making these garlic roasted green beans is very easy. The most time consuming part is cleaning the fresh green beans because first you have to snip the ends off. If you are doing this, you can clean them by:
- just breaking the ends off with your hands
- chopping the ends off with a knife
- or using kitchen sheers
I like to use kitchen sheers to pop the ends off. I think that’s fastest, but whatever floats your boat works here.
If you don’t want to clean your green beans, look for presnipped ones in the grocery store. Mine sells bagged green beans that already have the ends cleaned off.
Then once the green beans are cleaned, I tossed them with olive oil, 3 cloves of pressed garlic, and salt and pepper. I made sure to coat the beans evenly in the oil. Then I just spread them out onto a baking sheet lined with foil and popped them into a hot oven for 12 minutes. That’s it!
Variations and Customizations
Garlic Roasted Green Beans
The great thing about these roasted green beans aside from their overall level of deliciousness is that you can easily customize them to suit your taste. Want them sort of cheesy? (Of course! What kind of question is this even?) Add Parmesan cheese when you toss them with garlic and olive oil. Looking for more brightness? How about squeezing the juice of half a lemon into the mix? Serving them with something Asian inspired? Sub the olive oil for sesame oil and add a tablespoon of soy sauce. Want them with a bit more crunch? Coat them in bread crumbs. And, I’d be in the wrong if I didn’t suggest that bacon lovers add crumbled cooked bacon on top.
What to Serve with Garlic Roasted Green Beans
Garlic Roasted Green Beans
Garlic roasted green beans are pretty versatile as side dishes go. You could add chicken breast marinated in garlic, olive oil, and lemon and make a sheet pan style dinner like the Recipe Critic does with this crispy parmesan sheet pan chicken. You could also serve them with these Parmesan chicken nuggets, crispy baked drumsticks or even with this blood orange roast chicken. They also go quite nicely with steak like this pan seared steak with mushroom sauce or pork chops.
I also love these on my holiday table. For Thanksgiving dinner, I would serve them as a side to turkey paired with:
For Christmas, I would pair them with this stuffed flank steak and a cranberry apple crumble.
What would you serve them with?
Ingredients
- 1 pound of green beans ends trimmed off
- 3 cloves of garlic pressed
- 2 tbs olive oil
- salt and pepper to taste
- lemon slices optional
- fresh herbs to garnish optional
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 450. Toss green beans with garlic, olive oil, and salt and pepper. Roast for 10 -12 minutes. Garnish with lemon slices and fresh herbs if desired.
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