Garlic Green Beans with Pine Nuts Recipe
Recipe | Video | About Pine Nuts | Prep
Adding fat to a vegetable side dish helps your body absorb the fat-soluble vitamins and minerals in the veggies. A wonderfully healthy fat to add is pine nuts. Their mild, earthy flavor blends nicely with green beans in this Garlic Green Bean recipe.
Watch Me Prepare the Recipe [Video]
What Are Pine Nuts?
Depending on where you live, you might call pine nuts pinon, pinoli, or pignoli.
As their name implies, pine nuts are the edible seeds from pine cones. Not all pines produce large enough seeds for harvesting, so it is best to leave the harvesting to the professionals.
You can find pine nuts in your local grocery store. I recommend looking in the produce section. If you cannot find them locally, Amazon or other online retailers can help you out.
Pine Nut Nutrition
According to Cronometer, two tablespoons (17g) of pine nuts, which is what this recipe calls for, contain the following nutrients:
- Calories: 106
- Fat: 10.3g
- Carbs: 3.3g
- Fiber: 1.8g
- Protein: 2g
Pine Nuts Cost
I do want to make you aware of the cost of pine nuts, which can seem high. I purchased a 4-ounce (113g) package of pine nuts from my local grocer and paid $8.99.
That package will make about six and a half servings of this recipe. So, you can say that each serving costs me $1.36 in pine nuts.
Why the high price? As I mentioned, pine nuts come from pine cones. There is no way to mass harvest the nuts, so they are harvested by hand, which drives up the cost.
Preparing the Recipe
This recipe has two parts, but they are both simple.
- Steam the green beans
- Cook the pine nuts and garlic
There are only six ingredients:
- Green beans
- Oil
- Minced Garlic
- Pine Nuts
- Salt
- Pepper
I have made the recipe with frozen and fresh green beans. Either is fine, but when I have time, I like to use fresh since they seem to stay crisper.
I will often use coconut oil, which is a fine oil to cook with. In the video, I used avocado oil, which is a good heat-resistant monounsaturated oil that I like to use when cooking.
You can buy garlic cloves and mince them yourself, but I like to have pre-minced garlic on hand for convenience.
Garlic Green Beans with Pine Nuts Recipe
This recipe goes great with steak, chicken, or salmon. Try it with my Baked Salmon with Dill Sauce recipe!
Garlic Green Beans With Pine Nuts
courtesy of Dr. Becky Fitness
Ingredients
- 1.5 pounds (680g) Green Beans trimmed
- 1.5 tablespoons (20g) Avocado Oil substitute coconut oil or butter
- 3 cloves (9g) Garlic minced
- 2 tablespoons (17g) Raw Pine Nuts substitute walnuts
- 1 dash Salt
- 1 dash Ground Black Pepper
Instructions
- Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the green beans and cook until just tender, 3 to 5 minutes.
- Meanwhile, in a large skillet over medium heat saute the garlic in one-half tablespoon of coconut oil, stirring, for about 1 minute until the garlic is fragrant.
- Add the nuts and cook until golden brown, about 3 minutes.
- Drain the green beans and transfer them to the skillet. Add remaining oil, salt, and pepper and toss to coat. Cook for a few minutes until the beans are crispy tender.
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About the Author
Becky Gillaspy, DC graduated Summa Cum Laude with research honors from Palmer College of Chiropractic in 1991.
