Food - Drink
Start Smoking Your Green Beans For A Bolder Flavor
By AUTUMN SWIERS
Smoking vegetables is an easy way to impart a deliciously smoky and savory flavor that can enhance any recipe. Green beans, due to their naturally high water content, don't dry out easily during smoking, and the finished beans make the best Bloody Mary garnish and add smoky dimension to your winter salads and side dishes.
You can smoke green beans right in their pods, as long as you trim the ends off. To infuse the tender beans with a killer smoky flavor, a wood pellet smoker is the way to go; as for the actual wood, while applewood and cherrywood chips impart a milder smokiness, hickory and mesquite wood chips will pack a bolder smoky punch.
All you need to do is place the beans on a baking sheet, cover them in vegetable oil, season them, and close the smoker lid. The ideal cook time for 3 pounds of green beans is three hours in the smoker — one hour per pound of green beans is the sweet spot — and the temperature should remain below 250 degrees Fahrenheit.