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Let’s make some green beans! With goat cheese and pecans. You cannot go wrong with this combination of ingredients, you just can’t. The tangy and creamy goat cheese goes perfectly with the lightly candied and toasted pecans. Add green beans as the star of this dish and you have a winner. If you are in need of a side dish, give this a try.
ROASTED GREEN BEANS WITH GOAT CHEESE AND TOASTED PECANS
Recipe by: Mark Calaminici | Food Loves Company
Serve 4
Ingredients
2 tbsp. unsalted butter
Chili flakes, to taste
1 ½ tbsp. brown sugar
150g or 1 ½ cups pecans
Salt, to taste
2 pound green beans, washed and trimmed
1 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
Freshly cracked pepper, to taste
4-5 lemon slices
1 tbsp. lemon juice, optional
50g goat cheese, room temperature or warmed
Method
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. In a pan on medium to high heat, add butter, chili flakes, brown sugar and melt. Add pecans and season with salt. Mix to coat the pecans with melted butter and brown sugar. Once done, place pecans and space them out on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake for about 10 minutes. Flipping occasionally until toasted. Watch carefully as they can easily be burnt. Set aside to cool. Once the pecans have cooled you can finely chop pecans, blend in a food processor or place in a Ziploc bag and mash to a crumble or powder like consistency.
3. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, add beans, extra virgin olive oil and season with salt and freshly cracked pepper. Mix well until beans are nicely coated. Place beans and space them out on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Add lemon slices on top of beans and place in oven at 425 degrees for 10-15 minutes until browned and tender, flipping halfway through. As an optional step, you can broil just before removing to get extra colour. You want the beans to blister and have a nice char to them.
4. Once beans are done, remove lemon slices and add the beans to a large bowl. At this point you have to work fast because the residual heat from the beans will help melt the goat cheese a bit. Crumble the goat cheese into the bowl in small pieces, add lemon juice if you like and add a handful of pecans. Mix and toss to coat the beans well. The goat cheese and pecans may clump up a bit so just mix it up if it happens. Plate the beans and garnish with more pecan crumble. Enjoy!