I made these last Thanksgiving and was really surprised they were a hit. I kept hearing, “Please pass the bean packages,” so I was really glad I made them. I had been saving the recipe for years – it was in the November, 2012, Cooking Light magazine (pg. 58). It’s kind of time-consuming on a weeknight for the family, but if green beans are not your favorite food, they taste better this way.
The challenge was finding the cooking string, which in retrospect is kind of dumb because it’s really just plain string. On Thanksgiving I sent my husband on the cooking string mission, thinking he could run into the local Food Lion and find it. No such luck. Next he drove to the next town over to Safeway and they were either out or didn’t carry it. At the point, he decided to get on the phone because Wegman’s is another 20 miles from Safeway. The woman who answered found it on the shelves.
If you’re making them for a crowd, double the recipe. Be sure to get fresh green beans. And if you’re hosting Thanksgiving, make your list now when you aren’t stressed, and do your shopping the week before for everything except the fresh vegetables.
As you can see, you can roast more than one side dish at a time!
Roasted Green Bean Bundles
~1/2 lb fresh green beans
1/4 sweet or red onion, lengthwise slices
1/2 T avocado or hemp oil
1/2 t lemon juice
1/4 t Dijon mustard
1/4 t salt
1/4 t ground black pepper
One package of cooking twine
Preheat oven to 425. Start water to boil while trimming the green beans and slicing onion. Blanch beans and onions for 3 minutes.
Meanwhile whisk the remaining dressing ingredients. Toss drained beans and onions in dressing. Cut cooking twine in 6” lengths. Bundle about 6 green beans and a couple of pieces of onion in each pile and tie. Roast for 10 minutes then slip and roast another 7-10 minutes depending on how tender you want them.
