Spicy Sriracha Green Beans Recipe - Peas and Crayons (2024)

FAQs

What is the best flavor to add to green beans? ›

We love the way sriracha sauce pops on the palate with its unique blend of spicy chilies, pungent garlic, and tangy vinegar. We crave it in all the usual places — as a condiment with kick for Vietnamese recipes like Pho, baguette sandwiches, and noodle dishes, or as a dipping sauce for spring rolls and fried seafood.

Tahini + Toasted Sesame Seeds

This is the duo that gives green beans a creamy, crunchy twist with a big nutty flavor. Blanch green beans, then drizzle with tahini, and sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds.

Then, I toss the blanched beans with olive oil, lemon juice and zest, garlic, and salt to pep up their flavor. Serve them just like that, or dress them up more with toasted almonds or pine nuts, grated Parmesan cheese, red pepper flakes, or fresh herbs like basil, parsley, or thyme.

Sriracha gets its heat from red jalapeños peppers. Surprisingly, the sauce is only moderately spicy. On the Scoville scale, developed to measure the level of heat in chillies, sriracha measures 2,200. By contrast, Tabasco sauce clocks in at 3,750 and cayenne pepper at a startling 50,000!

Louisiana-style hot sauces, like Frank's Red Hot or Tabasco, are much thinner (runnier) than sriracha. They also tend to be quite vinegary and spicy, without any sweetness. These differences make it not the best substitute for sriracha.

Sambal oelek, the most popular brand of which is also produced by Huy Fong, is an obvious replacement thanks to its thick texture and spicy, garlicky flavor profile.

I suggest lining open bags of green beans with a towel to prevent moisture build-up. Stored properly, they can stay fresh for 10 days or up to 2 weeks. If they brown or turn slimy, they've gone bad.

Blanch Them

Blanching your greens is key to getting that bitterness level down. Because glucosinolates are water-soluble compounds, a lot of them are leached out into the water, allowing for a less bitter green.

Dried beans cooked with sea salt and water are delicious, but adding an onion, garlic, or other aromatics to the pot will make them even more flavorful!

What can you do to can green beans to make them taste better? ›

Pour the green beans and the reserved half of the canning liquid into a skillet. Add butter, onion powder, salt and pepper. Simmer, uncovered and stirring occasionally, until almost all of the cooking liquid has evaporated. Taste and adjust seasonings if necessary.

Not only are they relatively inexpensive, green beans are rich in vitamin C and beta-carotene, an antioxidant that gives fruits and vegetables their color. The vegetable helps fight inflammation and is a good source of folate and potassium, which helps regulate blood pressure.