Inspiration: It’s no secret that Brandon and I love food, but something that we don’t mention as much on here is that we also love craft beer. I’m talking in an obsessive way. Luckily, we live in an area with a ton of great breweries around that we frequent often. One of the things that we’ve noticed is that craft breweries tend to care abut where their food comes from/how it’s made, and thus the food at our local breweries is usually pretty fantastic. Hurray for the craft beer scene! Anyway, one of the breweries that we frequent, Blue Tractor, has a menu centered around Southern/BBQ foods. The last time that we went there, I had some roasted green beans with bacon as a side, and they were just fabulous. I immediately went about planning to recreate them at home.

What We Loved: This is a simple dish that packs loads of flavor. There aren’t a lot of things better than fresh, crisp vegetables, and when you toss them in bacon fat and mix them with crisped bacon pieces and caramelized shallots…..well, that pretty much speaks for itself. We both adored the awesome vegetable flavor of these beans paired with the rich, browned bacon flavor.

Tips: I wanted to roast these beans in the oven to get them nice and browned/slightly crispy and blackened (like they were at Blue Tractor), but I just had too many other things going on in the oven at the time. These were great cooked on the stove top, but if you want to roast the beans instead to get that added browned flavor, I know that they would also be awesome that way. We enjoyed these with our Thanksgiving meal, but they would certainly be a wonderful side on Christmas or New Years, too.

Green Beans with Bacon and Shallots
Source: Original Recipe
Serves: About 4

5-6 slices bacon, diced
2 shallots, diced
1 lb green beans (I used a frozen bag of the thin, haricots verts style)
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

1. Add the bacon and shallots to a saute pan over medium low heat. Cook until the bacon is crisp and the shallots are browned and caramelized, about 20-30 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, cover the green beans with water in a sauce pan and  bring to a boil. Cook for 3-4 minutes and drain.

3. Add the beans to the saute pan with the bacon and shallots. Season well with Kosher salt and fresh black pepper. Toss everything together, coating the beans in the bacon fat. Serve.