Slow Cooker Green Beans

One of the best things about Summer is all the delicious veggies from the garden and Farmer’s Market. Several times during the Summer, we enjoy a Meatless Meal with Corn on the Cob, Fruit Salad, Fried Zucchini and these Slow Cooker Green Beans. 

You can call me old-fashioned. I really don’t mind because a lot of the recipes we make on a regular basis are those that have been passed down from either one of our mothers. The recipe for these green beans has been in the family for years.

I can remember growing up when the beans were coming on strong in the garden along with the other vegetables and one of the first chores for us kids was to help mom snap a mess of green beans for the evening meal. We would always do this in the early morning so we could get a big pot going and let them simmer on the stove all day to let the flavors of the beans, bacon, and onions come together. The aroma would fill the whole house and so would the heat from the stove.

We’ve taken the best parts of the recipe, namely the fresh green beans along with the bacon and onion and added some salt and moved the pot from the stove into a crock pot. What a great way to cook these beans with little hassle and best of all you can put all the ingredients into the Slow Cooker first thing in the morning and they will be ready in time for dinner. Add these to a meatless meal or with some items cooked on the grill and you also won’t be heating up your kitchen as well.

The great thing about this recipe is that it is easy to change the flavor to suit your family. Like your green beans a little crisper? Cook them a little shorter in the slowcooker. Switch the bacon from a plain cured bacon to an apple or hickory smoked bacon and you can bring a little smokiness to the beans. The variations are endless. We still are tweaking the recipe every time we make it.

Like most things, this recipe is much better with fresh green beans. But it does turn out with canned as well- make sure to rinse them very well! These have worked best for me- they are longer and have no salt added!

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Slow Cooker Green Beans

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 8 hours

Total Time: 8 hours 10 minutes

Homestyle green beans without all the hassle. Recipe on HoosierHomemade.com

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Ingredients

• 2 lbs. fresh green beans
• 6 strips of bacon
• 1 medium yellow onion, rough chopped
• 1 tablespoon kosher salt or salt to taste

Instructions

1. Clean the green beans by snapping off the ends and then snapping longer ones in half.
2. Cut the bacon strips in half, and rough chop the yellow onions.
3. Add the green beans, bacon, yellow onion and salt to the slow cooker.
4. Add enough water to just cover the green beans.
5. Set the slow cooker to low and cook for 8 hours.