Browned Butter Cranberry Green Beans with Blue Cheese

Name: Browned Butter Cranberry Green Beans with Blue Cheese
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 10 min
Total time: 15 min
Ingredients: 1 lb fresh green beans (trimmed); 1/4 cup butter; 2 cloves minced garlic; 1/4 cup blue cheese; 1/3 cup toasted almonds; 1/4 cup dried cranberries; Salt and pepper to taste

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November 23, 2015

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These holiday-style browned butter cranberry green beans are a breeze to throw together and the flavor combination is absolutely heavenly!

Sides, sides! Give us the SIDES!

Team Side Dish is in serious session now. We’re getting down to the nitty-gritty of Thanksgiving prep and that obviously calls for more sides options.

Sidenote: (haha, get it??) It’s Monday and I actually don’t even mind! This will be only a two-day week for yours truly and then a nice little 1-week holiday break before getting ready for finals.

Oy. Let’s forget about that last part momentarily and focus on the VACATION part. And the fact that I have tons of planning/cooking/ripping my hair out yet to do for Thursday.

Sidenote #2: EEEEEEEK!

Yeah, vacation should really not be surrounded by those kinds of words.

‘Kay so we’re slooooowly plowing through all the bullet-point necessities involved in a killer Thanksgiving dinner (there’s still two more amazing ones coming soon!) and today we’re FINALLY doing something green! I mean, we need something at least semi-healthy to balance out the abundance of pumpkin pie and dinner rolls that have been around here lately, right??

Spoiler alert: I’m totally contradicting that statement tomorrow. Be ready.

So the way I see it, is this: The veg sides at Thanksgiving TOTALLY get overlooked and dude, that is so not cool in my book. Veggies deserve the chance to shine too! So why do they always get pushed to the back of the table while meanwhile the stuffing and mashed potatoes get all the glory?

The reason why is pretty simple: The veggies aren’t made fun. At the most, they’re buttered, salted, and peppered. And yeah, I’ll admit that for YEARS that right there was our standard Thanksgiving procedure for veggies.

I decided that holiday green beans desperately needed a makeover. In the direction of browned butter. With everything else just as awesome. Like blue cheese. And nuts. And cranberries.

And seriously, can we get an AMEN for easy-peasy, super-pretty, and non-boring green beans?? Watch ‘yo back, Mr. Turkey.

And lastly, I call dibs on all the blue cheese on top and in between everything.

Let’s all be rebels and make the green beans awesome this year. 😉

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5 from 1 vote

Browned Butter Cranberry Green Beans with Blue Cheese

Prep Time 5 minutes

Cook Time 10 minutes

Total Time 15 minutes

Servings servings

Calories 146kcal

Ingredients

1 lb fresh green beans trimmed
1/4 cup butter
2 cloves minced garlic
1/4 cup blue cheese
1/3 cup toasted almonds
1/4 cup dried cranberries
Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

In a medium pot, bring 4-6 cups water to a boil. Add beans to boiling water and stir occasionally until beans are just barely tender, about 5-7 minutes. (do not overcook). Remove beans from boiling water and immediately plunge into ice water for 1 minute or until beans are completely cool. Drain from ice water and set aside.
In a large nonstick skillet, melt butter over medium-high heat. Stir occasionally until butter is completely browned, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and beans to skillet, stirring frequently until beans are hot and garlic is fragrant. Remove from heat and gently stir in blue cheese, toasted almonds, and cranberries. Season with salt and pepper to taste and keep beans warm until ready to serve