Name: Easy Sautéed Garlic Green Beans
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 5 min
Total time: 10 min
Yield: 4
Ingredients: 5-8 cloves fresh garlic (minced); 2 Tbsp. bacon fat; 3 cups frozen green beans; salt & pepper (to taste)

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Howdy and welcome to Flawed yet Functional! I am a Type 1 Diabetic maintaining stable blood sugar through the Paleo Autoimmune Protocol. With several reintroductions under my belt, my diet is getting closer and closer to Paleo which feels so good! I know many of you might not agree, but to me, Paleo has so much freedom! As a busy mom with 2 young kids, side hustles, and homeschooling, I need fast, easy, and healthy food too! Today, I’d like to show you my jazzed up version of frozen vegetables: easy sautéed garlic green beans.

Benefits of Frozen Vegetables

Frozen vegetables often have more nutrients than fresh because they are picked at the height of ripeness then frozen quickly to preserve that freshness.

During Michigan winter, fresh vegetables travel a very long distance to get to our grocery stores. So I don’t feel one bit bad about taking advantage of frozen vegetables.

Ease of preparation is another huge advantage of frozen vegetables. Green beans in a bag are already cleaned, trimmed, and partially cooked! This means just open the bag and toss them in the pan with minutes to being ready to eat!

How to Jazz Up Frozen Green Beans

Frozen vegetables can be a little bland straight from the bag, right? Let me show you how to make them awesome!

First, sauté the beans in bacon fat. Yes, you read that right, bacon fat. It makes the world go round! I keep all the bacon fat from baking bacon in the morning and use it in place of oil on vegetables. The bacon fat makes the beans (or any vegetable!) super savory and delicious.

Want your kids to eat more vegetables? Use bacon fat. It will blow their minds.

Second, add fresh garlic, plenty of pepper, and just enough salt. Garlic is the second secret ingredient to make frozen green beans far from boring. Put the garlic in the pan with the beans so it has time to caramelize. I think green beans taste best with a generous sprinkle of pepper, and because of the salt in the bacon fat, go easy on the salt until after tasting the beans after cooking.

Finally, don’t overcook them! Frozen green beans are best cooked just until warmed through but still maintain some bite. So stir the beans very frequently to prevent the garlic from burning and avoiding overcooking the beans.

A Quick Note on Garlic

In my house, we all LOVE garlic. So you might find my recipes heavy on the garlic. Since garlic cloves come in may different sizes, how much am I really using in each recipe? Go with your gut when cooking. If you love garlic, put more in, but if it isn’t your jam, use less. I really like this quote I saw somewhere on the ole internets:

Don’t let a recipe tell you how much garlic to you. Measure that with your heart.

Cook with your hearts, my friends.

Try these easy sautéed garlic green beans next time you’re in need of a fast, tasty side dish to accompany a weeknight meal! We all need help eating real, whole food, so don’t feel bad reaching for frozen vegetables! You can even use this method, vegetable + garlic sautéed in bacon fat, to make any frozen vegetable more tasty and still plenty healthy!