Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl's Top 5 Green Bean Recipes

"Off the Menu" with Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl is heard Saturday mornings from 11:00-Noon on News Radio 830 WCCO! Each show at 11:20 she shares her "Top 5″ of the week. On Saturday, August 2nd she's sharing her Top 5 Green Bean Recipes.

It's the height of green bean season! They used to call them string beans, but then they got bred so they don't have strings on them anymore, and we don't want to call them stringless beans, so they're green beans. Full of vitamin A for good eyesight, and vitamin K for strong bones, and the same kind of healthy carotenoids and antioxidants usually associated with the bright-orange and bright-purple superfoods, green beans are extra extra good for you. And tasty.

Here are Dara's favorite ways to eat them. Get in on the green bean scene!

(credit: Lydiasitaly.com)

Pasta with Pesto
Recipe

The traditional way to serve traditional Italian pesto, the kind made with basil, olive oil, and pine nuts, is actually served with green beans and new potatoes. Make some pesto or buy it, then put it on your green beans. Lidia Bastianich has a classic recipe online that you'll love!

(credit: Sang An/Epicurious)

Cold Asian Green Beans
Website

Are you looking for the easiest pot-luck idea of all time? Of course you are. Boil a lot of water. Add salt. Add the green beans for 4 or 5 minutes. Pull them out and rinse with cold water in the sink till they're cold. Then dress with a vinaigrette made with a little sesame-oil, rice-vinegar, mustard, salt and pepper, sesame seeds. This is so good on a picnic table. And if you get some farmer's market green beans for a dollar a basket, a thrifty work of art. There's a great recipe on Epicurious above.

(credit: thekitchn.com)

Almond and parsley Pesto on Green Beans with an Egg
Recipe

Parsley is underrated and not used enough in the home kitchen. You can blend it up with almonds and a little garlic for a different pesto that's gorgeous with green beans. Add a fried egg and you have a quick and easy weeknight supper!

(credit: marcussamuelsson.com)

Deconstructed Salade Nicoise
Recipe

Salade Nicoise is the classic French salad with tuna, olives, potatoes, green beans and hard boiled eggs on some sort of lettuce base. It's been very trendy the last couple years to put sushi tuna on top, and Dara's not so much a fan of that at home as she is of the general idea. You take a French vinaigrette uniting lots of stuff from the garden, and some tuna fish. If you want to see a pretty picture and get a good salad dressing recipe here's a great one by Marcus Samuelsson. But oil-packed tuna, or even water-packed tuna dressed with this salad dressing and a tabelspoon of capers makes a nice dinner. Pile all the ingredients on a platter and let everyone take what they want.

(credit: Rob Tannenbaum/Marthastewart.com)

Plain! Yes, Plain
Recipe

Green beans are so good for you. Martha Stewart serves them standing up in cups with ranch dressing. Dara's second grader likes them raw, with nothing and her kindergartener likes to dip them in hummus. They're also good straight up, hot, with a little butter and salt. Do not let green bean season pass you by! They are so good they are good plain that all you need to do is open mouth, insert bean!