Southern Style String Beans

While I am a busy mom with so much going on, there are certain things that I won’t cut corners on and that is cooking fresh vegetables. I grew up in Eastern, NC and my parents really loved gardening so we had not only a garden in our backyard but we also had a grapevine, pear trees, and blueberry bushes. So, my love for fresh vegetables comes from the way I was raised. If you have the time, make fresh vegetables instead of using canned vegetables because the taste is so much better and like I say all the time...you know what you are eating.

This recipe for southern style string beans is really easy to make. The most time consuming part is snapping the beans depending on how much you are making. I use ham hocks when I cook my string beans but you can use smoked turkey meat or use vegetable broth if you don't eat meat. I also use a whole onion and a few cloves of garlic to help season my beans. When cooking my beans, I use chicken broth so please be aware of the amount of salt you use in this dish especially if you are cooking the string beans in ham hocks because the beans may come out way too salty. Ham hocks gives the string beans amazing flavor but they also tend to be salty. You can add a few small white potatoes to the strings beans if you would like and that way you are getting two side dishes out of one pot! I hope you enjoy these Southern Style String Beans as much as I do!

Ingredients needed to Make String Beans

1lb of fresh string beans

1 box of chicken broth

1 piece of ham hock or smoked turkey meat

2 cloves of garlic

1 whole onion

Salt and pepper to taste

Two tablespoons of olive oil

5 small white potatoes- optional

Directions to make the String Beans

1. Wash the beans thoroughly and then snap the string beans on both ends and remove the string.

2. In a large pot, add one piece of cooking meat to your pot and cover the meat with chicken broth, olive oil and salt and pepper to taste.

3. On medium high heat, cook the ham hocks until they are fork tender which should take about 45 minutes.

4. Once the meat is tender, add the washed and snapped beans to the pot. Add a whole onion and two cloves of garlic to the pot. Also, add the small potatoes at this time if you would like.

5. Cook down until the beans are fork tender. Remove the whole onion, garlic cloves break up the cooking meat before serving.