In the Kitchen with CCE: Green Bean Salad

TOWN OF DICKINSON, N.Y. (WIVT/WBGH) – The food experts from Cornell Cooperative Extension are back in the kitchen with a fresh and easy way to use your garden string beans.

Nutrition Educator Kathleen Cook is preparing a green bean salad.

She starts by blanching the beans to soften them up a bit. Then she combines them with garden tomatoes, red onion, kalamata olives, goat cheese and sliced almonds, topped with a vinaigrette made from olive oil, red wine vinegar and Dijon mustard.

Cook says all string beans, including wax beans and other colored beans, are great sources of fiber, vitamins C and K and folate. And while they’re in season throughout the summer, Cook says you can enjoy them all year long.

“If you’re going to blanch those briefly, then you pat them dry and just put them on a baking sheet in the freezer and they freeze solid. Then you put them into a Ziplock bag. Those though can last 6 to 8 months, up to a year in your freezer. So, you have the freshness and the bounty of the summer in the middle of the winter. You can still be eating them,” said Cook.

Cook says you can try the same freezing process with other garden vegetables too.

String beans, tomatoes, red onions, goat cheese and more are all available at the Broome County Regional Farmers Market on Upper Front Street, open Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. year-round.

Watch the video below to see the entire demonstration.

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