Pressure Cooker Green Beans

I love vegetables and these green beans are one of my favorites. I’m the type that looks forward to all of the side dishes at my family’s Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner. One of my favorite sides is my granny’s green beans. She cooks them in an old school pressure cooker that you have to put on the stove. I’ve always been afraid of using one of the old school models since I heard the story of my great grandfather exploding tomatoes all over the kitchen because he didn’t set it correctly.

My husband gifted me an electric pressure cooker and at first, I was freaked out by it, but now I use it for all kinds of recipes like these delicious Pressure Cooker Green Beans.

Any time that I snap green beans it takes me right back to childhood, I feel like I’m 8 or 9 years old, sitting on my great grandmother’s screened in back porch, snapping beans. The five to ten minutes that it takes me to work through a pound of the long green beans are almost meditative and I somehow feel her sitting across from me even though she’s not. She had a beautiful garden in the lower portion of her back yard, and I would help her pick the garden, eating the occasional banana pepper as I went. She always kept orange and lime sherbet and coffee flavored ice cream and of course after our hard work we enjoyed a bowl. Those were the days.

These are Southern style green beans which means that they have bacon grease to flavor them, but you can substitute 2 tsp. of regular oil if you don’t use pork or eat meat products.

Likewise, the chicken bouillon cube or chicken broth can be changed out for a vegetable bouillon cube or vegetable broth, and if you like your beans spicy then leave out the sugar and add red pepper flakes. I prefer my beans to have a little sugar and zero spice since that’s how I grew up eating them.

Southern style green beans are known to be very tender, so if you would prefer a crunchier bean then you either need to steam the beans or cook them for no more than 1 to 2 minutes at high pressure. 5 minutes at high pressure will slightly soften the beans, but not to the level of softness (or mushy) that we prefer in my family.

I hope that you’ll try this recipe today and leave a comment below. For daily updates please follow @lifeabovethecafe on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest using the social media icons found on this page.

Ingredients:

• 1 pound of green beans, snapped
• 1/4 – 1/2 cup of onion, diced
• 3 – 4 pieces of bacon
• 1 – 2 tsp. sugar (optional)
• 1/4 tsp. of black pepper
• 1/4 – 1/2 tsp. of garlic powder or one large clove of minced garlic
• 1 small chicken bouillon cube (omit if using canned chicken broth)
• 1 & 1/2 cups of water (omit if using canned chicken broth)
• No extra salt is added since the bacon and bouillon cube are salty
• optional – 1/4 – 1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes ( I leave this out since I don’t like them spicy)

Directions:

Dice the onion.  Use more if desired, but I use 1/4 cup since I prefer less onion.  Wash and prep the green beans by either cutting or snapping off the ends, removing any strings, and cutting or snapping the beans into pieces.  I like my beans in shorter pieces a little over an inch long, but section your pieces how you like.  Chop the bacon into bite sized pieces.

Set the electric pressure cooker to saute or cook mode and fry the bacon pieces.  Using a slotted spoon, remove the crispy bacon and save it to add back to the bowl of cooked green beans.  Use the bacon grease to cook the diced onion for about 1 minute, just to coat it in the bacon grease and then add the minced garlic if you aren’t using garlic powder.  Turn off the saute/cook button.

Add the snapped fresh green beans, water and chicken bouillon cube (or can of chicken broth), sugar, and all of the other seasonings to the pressure cooker and stir.  Close the lid and lock it and set the pressure to high (70 pounds) and the cook time for 15 minutes.  When the timer goes off carefully open the lid with a manual release.

I transfer my green beans to a serving dish and top them with the crunchy bacon pieces.

Note * if you find that these green beans still aren’t as soft as you like then cook them for 5 minutes longer.  I like this texture, but if you aren’t a fan of soft green beans try cooking them for 5 minutes or less at 70 pounds of pressure.

For vegetarian style, use 2 tsp. of regular oil and a vegetable bullion cube instead of the meat products.

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