Southern Style Green Beans

There are several crispy crunchy foods I enjoy; green beans just aren’t one of them. My favorite way to prepare green beans is to slow simmer them until they are tender and will melt in your mouth. Two things are essential in making tasty green beans; fresh green beans and good-quality broth. Finding them fresh can be hit or miss. Green beans are in season from May – October. Farmer's Markets are a good place to find them during this period. I've also had luck finding them at Sprouts. Fresh green beans should have a bright green color and look plump. They start to look leathery and faded when they’ve been sitting around for a while.

I like to use fresh broth for this recipe. Store-bought will also work in a pinch. I highly encourage making your own broth. It's easy to make and you can store it in your freezer until you're ready to use it. Today I prepared the green beans using turkey broth leftover from the holidays. Vegetable broth can be used instead if you want to make this recipe plant-based. A lot of green bean recipes include bacon. This one does not. Bacon, while delicious, can trigger inflammation. I left it out because I’ve been cutting back on inflammatory foods. I discovered that I really didn’t miss the bacon. The broth is the foundation of flavor for this recipe. It takes around an hour to simmer the green beans. Since I work during the week, it's more of a weekend dish. You can make a large batch of them and have an easy side dish throughout the week.

Ingredients:

Large bag of fresh green beans

1 red onion

1 clove of garlic

3-4 cups of fresh broth

Salt and pepper to taste

Steps:

Place the green beans on a cutting board. Line up the beans and cut off the ends. Flip and repeat on the other side. If you have long green beans, you may also want to cut them into bite-size pieces. I do this in batches and place the cut beans in a colander.