Amazing Garlic Green Beans – Skillet or Grill
Quickly cooked in a skillet or on the grill, these garlic green beans stay crisp-tender with the easy cooking steps. The recipe works just as well for weeknight dinners as it does for cookouts and holiday meals, giving you a flexible side dish you can take almost anywhere. Simple, fast, and dependable, these green beans are an easy way to add more delicious vegetables to the table.
✩ What readers are saying…
“Wow, so awesome!! Thanks for sharing! I love your recipe! Everything was so yummy!!” -Andrea
These super flavorful garlic green beans are one of our family’s favorite recipes, both when green beans are in season as well as our favorite way to eat our frozen garden green beans. But when the summer’s green beans are coming on strong, we probably eat our weight in garlic green beans almost weekly!
This easy recipe is deceptively delicious. Seriously. I know it has only 3 or 4 ingredients, but those ingredients all come together to create something truly amazing. I can’t just have one helping – or even two. And since I can’t possibly have a third helping of anything…I just pick the beans out of the serving bowl, lol.
About those green beans
I grow a couple of types of beans, but they are all French filet beans which are stringless and stay tender at many stages of growth. My favorite varieties that I grown every year are the pole beans Emerite and Fortex (I’ve recently added a yellow filet pole bean to the mix that you can read about here).
You can pick any of the filet varieties short and skinny for the true “hericot vert” bean (which I do at the beginning of the season), or leave them to grow longer and thicker. Either way, they stay tender and yummy and never have any strings.
TIP – Prepping Green Beans: I can’t be bothered with “snapping” one bean at a time – I lose more bean than I want and it takes longer – so I pile up a bunch of similar lengths and cut just the tips off all at once. For this recipe, cut the beans in the length you’d like to serve. Sometimes I leave them long for that restaurant look, but most of the time I cut them into 1 to 2-inch pieces because they are easier to eat.
Other recipe ingredients
Besides green beans (you can use fresh or frozen, though you’ll have to adjust the cooking time for frozen – included in the recipe card below), you’ll need:
- Olive oil and/or butter
- Minced garlic (of course)
- Salt and pepper to tast
- Optional red pepper flakes (this is what sets these apart, I think, and makes them similar to the beans you get in Chinese restaurants)
How to Make Garlic Green Beans: Skillet
Use a shallow pan large enough to hold the amount of beans you have. I like to use my 10-inch cast iron skillet. It’s a quick three-step process to cook them in a skillet – basically we’re sautéing, steaming, and then charing them a bit to resemble roasted, but without turning on the oven! (Psst – you can also easily roast these when you want with this roasted green beans recipe!)
Step 1: Sauté the beans a bit, in a mixture of olive oil and butter for a few minutes. Add the garlic (with red pepper flakes, if using) and some water, then cover and cook for 3 to 5 minutes, depending on how you like your beans. I like them crisp-cooked, not mushy, so 3-4 minutes is usually good.
Step 2: Remove the cover, turn the heat to high and quickly cook the liquid away, stirring gently a few times, until the beans are sizzling in the pan and some are starting to char (we think the more char, the better).
Step 3: Season to taste with salt and pepper and serve right away.
Garlic Green Beans Grill Option
The grilling method is more simplified, since all the charring takes place at once on the grill.
- Prepare beans as you normally do, but use only olive oil to coat them, adding the other seasonings (garlic, salt and pepper, and red pepper flakes) at the same time and tossing together.
- Using a high-sided grill pan with holes, grill the beans over medium-high heat for about 10 minutes or until done, tossing frequently.
- TIP: Like the skillet method, these are so good with little charred areas on them, so make sure to grill long enough to get them.
Either way you make them, the beans become nicely coated with buttery-garlicky goodness – and a little spice if you add the red pepper flakes – which pretty much makes them hard to stop eating! But healthy green beans you can’t stop eating? That’s a good thing, right?
(By the way, I have a whole list of quick healthy recipes like this here if you’re interested!)
I hope you love these garlic green beans as much as we do – be sure to leave a rating and review to let me know!
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Amazing Garlic Green Beans – Skillet or Grill
Equipment
- 10 to 12 inch skillet OR grilling basket to use on a gas or charcoal grill
Ingredients
- 4 cups trimmed fresh* green beans cut as desired
- 1 tablespoon butter (or use all olive oil to be dairy free)
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 tablespoon minced fresh garlic
- 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes or to taste, optional
- 1/4 cup water
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Skillet method:
- Trim and cut green beans.
- Heat butter and oil over medium-high heat in a large, shallow pan.
- Add beans and cook, stirring, for about 4 minutes. Add garlic and pepper flakes, if using, and stir.
- Add water and cover. Cook for 3 to 5 minutes, depending on desired doneness (for crisp-tender 3-4 minutes is good).
- Remove lid and, turning heat to high, cook stirring constantly until liquid evaporates and some beans start to brown and char.
- Add salt and pepper to taste and serve immediately.
- Grill method:
- Trim and cut beans.
- Coat beans with only olive oil (no butter) and toss with garlic, salt and pepper, and red pepper flakes, if using.
- Using a high-sided grill pan with holes, grill the beans over medium-high heat for about 10 minutes or until done, tossing frequently. Make sure to let some of the beans get a little charred on them…oh SO good.
Notes
Nutrition
More Green Bean Recipes To Try
- Long-cooked green beans
- Greek Style Pasta Salad with Green Beans
- Garlic spiced canned pickled green beans
- How To Freeze Green Beans The Easy Way Without Blanching
This recipe has been updated – it was originally published in 2010 and updated in 2016 and 2026.
I have been making the garlic green beans for years but tonight I had some asparagus to use up. I chose the slender ones from our garden, snapped them (I usually peel the large stalks), cut them into large pieces and proceeded as though they were beans. I will add this method for using our, sometimes overwhelming, harvest. It was too warm to turn on the oven for roasting which is another way I like it.
Oh, that sounds like a delicious way to use asparagus, Lea – I’ll have to try it next year (our harvest is done).
Wow so awesome!! Thanks for sharing! I love your recipe! Everything was so yummy!!
Hi. We make them with the beans, garlic, kosher salt and olive oil and eat them over angel hair pasta. They are delicious.
This is how we like to make our green beans too with the exception of the red pepper flakes. I will definitely give that a try. We add dried Summer Savory when cooking. Something I learned from my husbands family in France.
I’ve never thought of that, Eileen, I’ll have to try summer savory!
And how many will this recipe serve, please?
4-6, but it’s easy to make it less or more and tailor to your needs! 🙂
Thanks for the green bean recipe. My beans have snuck in a second crop and it’s growing like crazy! Your recipe was perfect!
Hah! I decided to leave out the picture of when I added the garlic and just write it in- seemed like too many pictures of a pan of beans!- guess I should’ve left it in? 🙂
Thanks, Native Texan, for the kind comments and helping Chris!
Sherri B.- Yes! I’ve done that, too, but I also add a bit of soy sauce along with the pepper.
These look fantastic, Jami. thanks for sharing. You really are inspirational for making me want to cook and eat at home! I just shared your recipe and web site address with my two sisters.
All I can say is YUM!
These look wonderful! I will definitely be giving them a try. Thanks!
maybe its me i have my moments but when do you add the garlic?
These sound like the ones I have been trying to duplicate from our favorite Chinese buffet. I couldn’t get it right but I think if I add a pinch of red pepper flakes and follow your instructions I will finally have it. A big Thanks!
Chris,
“Add a tablespoon of minced garlic for each 4 cups, stir, and then pour in about 1/4 cup of water.”
Jami has this after the beans are added and before the water. It is in between two pictures.