Steamed green beans are dressed in a light vinaigrette, then dolloped on a creamy-salty spread made with feta cheese. A low-effort dish, great as a vegetarian main with chunks of your favourite bread, or as a side at your next gathering.
If you cook, you can’t not love the summer months. The markets are bursting at the seams with produce – and not the sad, looks-like-it’s-been-dropped-from-a-plane produce either, that we find in stores in winter. Now we’re spoiled with lush lettuces (use them in this easy salad), tomatoes dripping with sweet juice, zucchinis of all shapes (try the funkily shaped pattypan squashes if you haven’t yet).
Beans are abundant too, snappy with freshness, fully in season. I picked up some local French green beans at the store last week. They are also called haricots verts, are more slender and cook up slightly faster than regular green beans. I prefer these when they’re available. This recipe is a great way to use them, in addition to being a fast solution to dinnertime woes. We enjoyed these green beans with whipped feta on a warm evening, and washed them down with a Lillet elderflower spritz. A light meal fit for summer.
How to make this green beans with whipped feta recipe
You’ll need a small food processor for this recipe, and a steamer basket for the beans, although you can also blanch them. The beans are steamed, and ready in minutes. While that is going down, you make the whipped feta. This creamy-salty spread becomes a silky foundation on which you’ll dollop the beans, after they’ve been dressed with a light shallot vinaigrette. The final touch is a garnish of chopped hazelnuts, lemon zest and chopped parsley.
We enjoyed these green beans with whipped feta with chunks of sourdough bread. It also works well, if unorthodoxly, on freshly cooked fusili pasta. In this latter case, I chopped the beans to the same length as the pasta before using them in the recipe.
Substitutions
this recipe works with other green bean varieties. Yellow beans a.k.a. wax beans, purple beans, flat a.k.a. Romano beans can all be used in this recipe. Follow the weight measurement, to ensure an appropriate vegetable-to-vinaigrette ratio. Also, steam them for longer, as all other beans take longer than haricots to cook through. If you have asparagus, that will work equally well without any other substitutions, but adjusting cooking time
the yogurt can be dairy or vegan, and if you haven’t got either, you can use sour cream or crème fraîche
instead of the small shallot, use 1 tablespoon finely chopped chives or finely sliced green onions.
Something to note is that the recipe makes 2 servings. If you need to feed more than 2 adults and 1 child, as my family, then double the quantities.
135g(4.7 oz) feta cheese block or vegan feta style block
2tablespoonsyogurt (dairy or vegan, both work)
Zest of ½ lemonplus extra for garnish if desired
¼teaspoondry oregano
1tablespoonolive oil
For the green beans:
260g(9 oz) green French beans/haricots verts, stem ends trimmed
1tablespoonolive oil
¼teaspoonfine sea salt
2teaspoonfresh lemon juice
1small shallotwalnut-sized, very finely chopped
2tablespoonfinely chopped fresh parsley(chop first then measure), plus more for garnish
¼cuptoasted hazelnuts or walnuts
Instructions
Rig up a steaming setup: medium saucepan on the stove with a steaming basket inside. While the water comes to a boil, prepare the whipped feta.
To a small food processor add the feta (crumble it in), yogurt, lemon zest and oregano. Start blending, then slowly drizzle in the olive oil. Continue running the food processor until the mixture is creamy and there are no feta chunks left.
For the green beans, when the steamer water has come to a boil, add the green beans and steam, covered, for 7 minutes. At the 7 minute mark check for doneness. The beans should be cooked through but still retain their colour. Continue steaming until tender. French beans are slimmer and more tender, for regular green beans and frozen green beans, you will have to steam longer.
When the beans are cooked through, drain them and set aside while you make the dressing. To a bowl large enough to hold the beans, add the olive oil, salt, lemon juice, and parsley. Add the green beans and toss well to coat.
To serve: spread the whipped feta onto a platter or individual plates, then top with the dressed green beans. Sprinkle with the toasted chopped hazelnuts, then extra parsley. Using a microplane, grate over some lemon zest, if desired.
Yield: 2 as a main dish, 4 as a side dish
Keyword steamed green beans, whipped feta cheese
If you are looking for more main dish ideas, check out this dish of roasted tomatoes with white beans. Both the green beans and the roasted tomatoes would be great as part of a vegetarian feast.
