A summer green bean recipe to knock your socks off. Who says boiling is the only way to cook our beans? This recipe has you making fresh salsa, then charring the green beans with the charred salsa. I love green beans and I’m always looking for more ways to eat them. Tomatoes and green beans pair really well together, so I thought why not mimic the char on the green beans to a freshly charred salsa? First time making salsa? This is a great way to get familiar with the four main salsa ingredients. Tomato, jalapeno, onion, and lime juice. Let’s get into it.

Salsa can be whatever you have on hand, as long as there’s a spicy element, juicy element, flavor enhancer, and citrus. We have raw salsa called pico de gallo or salsa fresca, we have boiled salsa like salsa rojo or salsa verde, then we have roasted salsa (my personal favorite) which just gets more flavor development from browning. Making salsa has never been easier. This recipe is also a really good one to substitute for your favorite store-bought salsa too. Char the beans and cool it off with some good salsa. Think of this as a side dish you can cleverly serve alongside taco night. A vegetarian’s delight.

Like any green vegetable, green beans benefit from citrus. It helps cool the beans down, brightens up all the flavors in the dish, and helps our body absorb the fiber better. Green beans go dark green when they are cooked too long. It’s kind of like overcooked pasta, soggy and inedible. It’s important to toss those beans when charring them to prevent dark green colors. Pan searing them this way develops char while steaming the beans on top. No water is necessary, I guarantee you will be cooking green beans this way from now on.