Shallot Green Beans with Hazelnut Butter

The combination of hazelnuts, lemon and shallots in these French Green Beans elevates this side dish to a completely amazing level. You'll definitely want to come back for seconds!! 

These vibrant green beans are the star side dish your spring meal deserves. They pair especially well with this Pork Tenderloin with Cherry Merlot Sauce. For dessert, add this Creamy Lemon Tart and you've got the ultimate date night meal.

Well, by now you probably know that veggies are not one of my most favorite things, however, green beans are on the shortlist of veggies that I actually like. When you add some simple, fresh seasonings to them, they become simply wonderful! To me, green beans and springtime go hand-in-hand so with the season quickly approaching I wanted to update one of my favorite green bean recipes.

Recipe ingredients + Substitutions

This recipe uses a few fresh ingredients, some of which you likely already have on hand.

• Green beans: You are looking for french green beans (also known as hericot vert) which are thinner and more tender than standard green beans. You can substitute regular green beans but they will need to steam for a minute or two longer and you'll get a slightly different taste.
• European Butter: Since butter is one of the key ingredients in this dish, use the highest quality butter you can afford.
• Hazelnuts: I generally buy whole hazelnuts and then chop or smash them into smaller pieces.

Making Green Beans

This recipe only takes a few steps and since the beans cook quickly you'll want to have everything prepped before you start cooking.

Step 1 | Trim the green beans. Start by rinsing the beans and then trimming the stems off. While you certainly can remove the stems by hand, this takes forever! So a quicker and easier way to do this is to arrange small groups of the beans with the stems all pointing in the same direction and then cut the stem end off the entire pile at the same time. No worry if they aren't all even - no one will notice!

Step 2 | Make the butter. You'll find a lot of green bean recipes that call for sauteing the beans in butter. Instead of cooking them in butter, I add a compound butter at the end to ensure all the beans get coated evenly and the flavors stay fresh and bright. Compound butter is simply about combining softened butter with other seasonings. If you want to know more, check out this post about how to make compound butter.

Step 3 | Steam the beans. You'll want to use a sauté pan with a lid for this recipe. Once you add the water, cover the beans and cook them until the water evaporates. Resist the urge to open the lid, but do keep an eye on them, as there should be a small amount of water in the bottom of the pan until right before you remove them from the heat.

Step 4 | Add the compound butter. This is the step where you add all the flavor to the dish. Toss the beans with the butter using a pair of tongs. It's ok if you have a few larger clumps of butter as they will melt as the beans finish cooling off. You can leave the beans in the warm pan for a few minutes until you are ready to serve.

More side dish ideas

For more interesting side dish ideas, try these Individual Potato Gratins, this Spring Pea Salad or these Simple Roasted Carrots with Cumin, Honey & Ricotta.

French Green Beans with Hazelnut Butter

Author: Kathryn | Urban Foodie Kitchen

The combination of hazelnuts, lemon and shallots in these French Green Beans elevates this side dish to a completely amazing level!

5 from 1 vote

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Prep Time 5 minutes mins

Cook Time 8 minutes mins

Total Time 13 minutes mins

Course Veggies & Sides

Cuisine American

Servings 4 -6 servings

Ingredients

  

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• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
• 1 tablespoon minced shallots
• 1 teaspoon lemon zest
• 2 tablespoon chopped hazelnuts
• 1 pound French green beans, rinsed and trimmed
• ¼ teaspoon sea salt
• ½ cup water

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Instructions

 

• Make the compound butter. Mix the butter, shallots, lemon zest and hazelnuts in a small bowl until combined.  Refrigerate while the beans are cooking.
• Steam the beans. Place the beans in a sauté pan and sprinkle with salt.  Add the water.  Cover and cook over medium-high heat for 6 minutes.  Remove the lid and continue to cook for about 2 minutes, until all of the water boils off.  Immediately remove from heat.
• Finish the dish. Spoon butter mixture over the beans.  Using a pair of tongs, toss the beans until all of the butter is melted and the beans are coated.  Serve immediately.

Keywords : Easter side dish, easy side dish

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This post was originally published in April 2019. It was updated in March 2024 with some new information and photos. No changes were made to the original recipe.