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These flavorful and tender green beans have been a Southern staple for generations. Slow cooked in a vitamin-rich broth with smoked meat, this cultural side dish is on every Southern holiday table!
If you are a Southern lady, you may have memories of snapping green beans into a wooden bowl with your grandma or mama as a little girl.
I grew up with a house full of ladies on Thanksgiving, usually at my grandma's house in a small town in Georgia. My dad usually watching tv (possibly with some uncle, neighbors, or cousins), and my aunts and grandma in the kitchen with my mama.
I'd be snapping fresh green beans into a big woven bowl sitting on an old stool at the kitchen table while they were cleaning greens fresh from grandma's garden, mixing pies, and yammerin'. There's always yammering in the kitchen with a bunch of women.
My snapped beans would be put into a slow cooker or a large stockpot if the stove wasn't too busy with salty, smoky ham hocks for a few hours until the green beans are swimming in their own potlikker and tender enough for anyone from your great-great auntie in the wheelchair to your baby niece to eat.
You know this is an authentically southern green bean dish, it's been passed down for at least four generations of Southern black ladies: my great-grandma, grandma, mama and aunts, and I all make these green beans the same way.
Jump to:
What are southern green beans?
It's super simple; fresh green beans are snapped and slow-cooked in chicken broth with garlic, onion, a bit of pepper, and salty meat like smoked turkey, bacon, or ham hock to give the green beans a ton of flavor.
Traditionally, these savory homemade green beans are reserved for your Easter lunch after church, made in large quantities for Thanksgiving feasts, and are always getting cozy with the baked mac and cheese on your plate at Christmas. But that doesn't mean that it's a difficult dish to make! In fact, you'll be blown away by how easy it is to make these old fashioned green beans.
Origins of Southern-Style Green Beans
Slow cooked green beans are --yep-- a big part of soul food. Greens and beans slow cooked in pot likker is something Africans brought with them when they were kidnapped and brought to the U.S., according to culinary historians.
The enslaved Black folk had to make do with what they could, often scraps of undesirable meat and leftover vegetables. Slow simmering green beans in a vitamin-rich liquid --which we call potlikker or 'pot liquor'-- with bits of savory meat filled their bellies, added calories, and gave them more energy to work.
By the late 1870s, it was common practice in the South to slow cook green beans with some sort of fatty pork parts like bacon, fatback, or ham hock, even making its way into 19th-century cookbooks.
How to Make Them
Like I said, it's mind blowingly simple. Dump all the ingredients into your slow cooker and let cook for 3-4 hours on high or 6 hours on low.
I like to use the ham hocks as a measure; when they're falling apart and fork-tender, you know your green beans are done and full of flavor!
Ingredients
The ingredients are simple and few, but each one plays an important part so don't skip them!
Green Beans. Science has mostly bred the strings out of string beans now but you can use either string or pole beans. The only real difference between them is that pole beans have to be grown on a trellis or pole for support in order to flourish.
Snap your green beans instead of cutting them. Snapping --or bending the ends of the beans to get the wispy end bits off and then snapping in half to bite-sized pieces-- lets you feel and see how fresh each green bean is. You don't want a limp, sad bean and you definitely don't want a bean that a critter has munched on in the garden or one that is starting to rot.
Snapping beans (besides being a wonderful tradition to have with little ones who just want to soul-sit under you so you need to give them something to do) lets you ensure that every single bean is of good quality.
It's not as tedious as you'd think, either. Bean snapping a few pounds takes about 10 minutes at the most. Sit on the couch and watch tv or chat with someone while snapping your beans and it'll be done before you realize.
Garlic and Onions. Some like fresh garlic and onions in their potlikker. I don't, it's just a preference. I use garlic and onion powders or minced and dried. They give you flavor without your kids refusing to eat them because they see a big ole chunk of onion on their plate.
Meat. A smoked piece of meat is quintessential to your southern style green beans. It just won't taste the same without something in there. I know many people use bacon, but you have to dirty up another pan to cook them before adding them into your pot.
I personally use ham hock. It's what I grew up on. What's ham hock? It's the shank or ankle of a pig that has been smoked. You can also find it called 'pork knuckle' in certain regions.
Ham hocks have a distinctive meaty flavor and are tough with tons of fat, connective tissue, and more often than not have the skin still wrapped around the meat of it tightly. All of this is good, it means that it imparts tons of collagen into your potlikker, the connective tissue and skin loosen up as if cooks for several hours and the meat becomes fall-apart tender by the end of the cooking process while still holding fantastic smoky flavor.
You can find ham hocks at many local big box supermarkets, but you can also find them at butcher shops and ethnic markets for dirt cheap. They can come in giant knuckles or in horizontal slices.
Pro Tip: Don't eat pork? Smoked turkey necks and wings have been a widely used pork substitute for greens and beans. They still give a delicious smoky, meaty flavor.
But I am Team Ham Hock til the day I die.
Broth. The traditional is chicken broth, but vegetable broth is also a great addition to create pot likker.
Red Pepper Flakes. Optional, but I like the slightly spicy kick it adds.
Making green beans ahead of time
Preparing your green beans before a big feast like Thanksgiving is a breeze. These green beans stay in your fridge for up to 7 days when stored correctly in an air-tight container inside your fridge (not the door). Keep the beans and meat in the potlikker when storing, it keeps them from drying out.
To reheat for serving, you can nuke it in the microwave for a few minutes until everything is heated through. You can also put all of it into a large saucepan or small Dutch oven and heat over medium-low until hot.
Recommended Tools
Love Thanksgiving recipes? Check out:
- Southern Baked Soul Food Mac and Cheese
- Cast Iron Skillet Cornbread
- Classic Roast Turkey Recipe
- Spatchcock Foolproof Turkey
- Grandma Reid's Southern Candied Yams
- Sweet Potato Casserole with Brown Sugar Topping
- Garlic Butter Mushrooms
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Slow Cooker Southern Green Beans
These flavorful and tender green beans have been a Southern staple for generations. Slow-cooked in a vitamin-rich broth with smoked meat, this cultural side dish is on every Southern holiday table!
Ingredients
- 2 lbs fresh green beans
- 1 or 2 smoked ham hocks
- 1 cup (200 mL) chicken stock
- 2 cups (50 mL) water
- 1 tsp granulated garlic
- 1 tsp granulated onion
- ½ tbsp salt
- 1 tsp black pepper
- ½ tsp red pepper flakes, more is optional
Instructions
- Rinse, dry, and snap the ends off your fresh green beans, discarding any green beans that are limp, brown, or otherwise not fresh.
- Set your slow cooker to low (six hours) or high (3 hours) and toss in the ham hocks, chicken stock, water, snapped green beans, garlic, onion, kosher salt, black pepper, and red pepper flakes. Stir to make sure all the spices are mixed into the chicken stock. Secure the top of the slow cooker and let the green beans cook until the ham hocks are fork tender.
- After the time is done, serve hot. Keep in the fridge in an airtight container for up to 7 days.
Notes
Make Green Beans Ahead
Preparing your green beans before a big feast like Thanksgiving is a breeze. These green beans stay in your fridge for up to 7 days when stored correctly in an air-tight container inside your fridge (not the door). Keep the beans and meat in the potlikker when storing, it keeps them from drying out.
To reheat for serving, you can nuke it in the microwave for a few minutes until everything is heated through. You can also put all of it into a large saucepan or small Dutch oven and heat over medium-low until hot.
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Nutrition Information:
Yield: 12 Serving Size: 1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 39Total Fat: 1gSaturated Fat: 0gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 0gCholesterol: 2mgSodium: 367mgCarbohydrates: 7gFiber: 2gSugar: 3gProtein: 3g
All nutrition facts are estimations. Please see a physician for any health-related inquiries.
Eden Westbrook is the recipe developer, writer, and photographer behind Sweet Tea and Thyme. A classically trained chef, Eden has inspired home cooks into the kitchen with cultural comfort foods, easy family-friendly eats and sweets, and glorious spreads for date night and entertaining since 2015.
I'm curious what your opinion is on using ham base instead of chicken broth in this recipe, now that it is available in grocery stores. Thanks!
Go ahead and do your thing, Mrs. Bradbury. It sounds good to me!
I've been searching for a good, southern recipe for fresh green beans like Mama used to make, but for a slow cooker. This sounds like it may be the one. Couple of questions, if you have the time. First, Mama always used ham hocks AND bacon. Think that'll work here? Second, I want to add potatoes to make this a one dish Christmas dinner. Should they go in at the start, or a bit later? Your suggestions would be greatly appreciated, and I'll let you know how it turns out. Thanks.
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