Festive Green Beans
These festive almond green beans with toasted almonds, lemon zest, and Parmesan cheese are the perfect holiday side dish—easy to make and full of flavor!
Servings: 4 servings
Ingredients
- 1 ½ lbs green beans
- salt pepper
- ¼-1/2 cup almonds sliced
- 1 - 1 ½ Tablespoons olive oil
- 3-5 garlic cloves sliced
- 1 teaspoon lemon zest
- ½ Tablespoon lemon juice (optional)
- ¼ cup Parmesan cheese finely grated
- ½ Tablespoon fresh parsley minced
Instructions
- Bring a pot of generously salted water to a boil. Blanch the green beans in the boiling water for about 3 minutes, drain.
- Meanwhile, toast the almonds on a dry skillet until they are golden brown. Set aside.
- In the same skillet, heat the olive oil on medium high heat and add the sliced garlic. Cook until the garlic turns golden, but be careful not to burn it, since it will taste bitter. (I used garlic slices in this recipe because I wanted it to resemble the sliced almonds, but you can also used minced garlic, in which case cook it for about 30 seconds to a minute only. You can also smash the garlic cloves and add them to the oil whole, cook them and then discard the garlic. The oil will have the flavor of garlic, but the finished dish will just have a very mild garlic flavor.) Remove the garlic slices from the skillet and set aside, so they don't burn.
- Once the garlic is ready, add the blanched green beans to the skillet. (If using minced garlic, add the green beans right in.) Season with more salt (if needed) and freshly cracked pepper. Sauté them on high heat for about 3 minutes, letting them get slightly charred in some spots, if you'd like. This gives them a nice depth of flavor.
- Toss the beans with the almonds, garlic, lemon zest, lemon juice (if using), Parmesan cheese and parsley. Serve immediately.
- I like to garnish the green beans with more Parmesan cheese right before serving.
Notes
Prep Ahead
You can do most of the prep work ahead of time. Blanch the green beans, toast the almonds and you can keep them in the refrigerator and a ziptop bag respectively. Just cook the garlic and sauté the green beans when you are ready to serve them and toss with the rest of the ingredients.