Southern Style Green Beans
While I love me a pan of crispy sauteed green beans for a quick side dish – nothing beats a big pot of these slowly simmered green beans. Every member of our family loves them, including my little granddaughters. No southern family meal is complete without them!
Ingredients
- 4 lbs fresh green beans, thoroughly rinsed, ends trimmed, snapped in half and rid of any strings
- 1 large yellow onion, diced
- 6 slices bacon, cooked and diced See in our Notes section for the link to the Oven Roasted Sheet Pan Bacon Recipe
- 2 cloves garlic, finely minced or garlic powder to taste
- 2 quarts chicken broth
- 1 1/2 tsp favorite Seasoning Salt I love Fiesta Brand Chicken Rub
- 2 tbsp bacon fat
- ½ stick unsalted butter
- Salt & Pepper to taste
Instructions
- In a large heavy dutch oven with lid, add diced bacon and simmer until done but not too crispy.
- Remove from pan and drain on paper towels leaving bacon drippings in pot
- Add diced onion, sprinkle with a dash of salt and cook for a couple of minutes.
- Add minced garlic and cook for 1 minute
- Add green beans to the pot and combine everything well – allowing the beans to mingle with the onion and garlic for a couple of minutes.
- Add your seasoning salt, a few good cracks of freshly ground black pepper, pinch of kosher salt and garlic powder if using, then pour about 5- 6 cups of the broth over the beans and combine well.
- You want the liquid to rise to about ¾ way up the beans – but you don’t want them covered in the liquid.
- Bring to a boil then cover with lid, lower temp and simmer for about 30 minutes.
- Remove lid and continue to simmer, stirring occasionally until beans are fairly soft, another 30 to 45 minutes or so.
- During this time, you are allowing the liquid to ‘cook down’ and adding more broth as needed
- When your beans have cooked down where they are nice & tender and just a bit of liquid remains in bottom of pot, add the butter and diced bacon and stir to combine.
- Taste for any final seasoning needed.
- Keep warm until serving time.
- These reheat very well, making excellent leftovers!
Notes
* Oven Roasted Sheet Pan Bacon Recipe
*I’m usually able to find fresh green beans at our local Central Market year-round. If you can’t find them where you are or they aren’t looking especially great, you can use canned beans with this recipe. I prefer Del Monte Blue Lake whole or cut green beans. Simply drain the liquid from the cans and proceed as with fresh beans. You probably will be able to cut the cooking time a bit with this method.
*For a variation, add small baby red potatoes to the beans during the second half of cooking time, stirring occasionally. I always do this if I’m not serving mashed potatoes with the meal. So good!!
*See my recipe for oven-roasted bacon. This is the way I always cook bacon. I reserve the fat and keep it in a jar in the fridge as any true southern cook does!! I usually do a large pan of bacon on the morning of a big family meal. We use some for breakfast and I reserve what is needed later for dishes such as these delicious green beans or Seven Layer Salad, etc.
In the case of this recipe, you would just use a couple of tablespoons of fat from your ‘bacon jar’ and sauté your onion, and so on.