Greek Style Green Beans (Fasolakia) Stovetop & Instant Pot Options

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Greek Style Green Beans (Fasolakia) | Reclaiming Yesterday

[I made these saucey Greek Style Green Beans *aka Fasolakia* for Earth Fare!]

We’re getting ready to head to Greece again in about a month, and I’ve already got visions of all the delicious food we’ll eat swirling in my head! 

The food in Greece is something that I fell in love with right away when I first landed there to study abroad. And one of my favorite Greek dishes still to this day is green beans in tomato sauce. 😍

In Greek, they’re called Φασολάκια–pronounced fah-so-lah-kia. And they’re GOOD. Greek Style Green Beans (Fasolakia) | Reclaiming Yesterday

I like to use frozen green beans for this fasolakia recipe, because: 

  1. Frozen veggies are wickedly convenient and a lifesaver on busy nights. 
  2. The green beans in this recipe get stewed down quite a bit, so the frozen ones work perfectly since we’re not going for a crisp texture. 

I used to sort of turn my nose up at soft-cooked green beans. I only wanted them crispy and al dente. But then, I had these green beans in Greece.

And then I had them a million more times.

And I was sold on the stewed green bean method. Greek Style Green Beans (Fasolakia) | Reclaiming Yesterday

The green beans are cooked down in lots of olive oil, grated onion, tomatoes, and garlic–transforming them into the healthy comfort food of my dreams. In Greece, this green bean recipe (fasolakia) is eaten often as a light main dish and served with salty feta and crusty bread. 

The sweetness from the onions and tomatoes pairs up perfectly with the briney feta. And the garlicky-tomatoey-olive oil sauce action that pools at the bottom of your plate just asks to be sopped up with a hunk of bread. 

Fasolakia can also be eaten as a side dish and served up with some grilled chicken or beef patties

Greek Style Green Beans (Fasolakia) | Reclaiming Yesterday

Notes on making perfect Greek style green beans 

  1. Grate your onion instead of dicing. I picked up this trick from an authentic Greek Yia-Yia (Grandmother). Grating the onion allows it to sort of melt into the sauce, making it thick and sweet. (in a sultry, savory-food kind of way) 
  2. If you can, make your Greek green beans the day before serving. Like most stewed dishes, it just gets better with a nap in the fridge. 
  3. This may seem odd, but I love eating these beans cold, straight out of the fridge! They’re good hot too, but I think I got used to eating them cold when we lived in Greece (with no microwave and sweltering heat)
  4. Don’t skimp on the olive oil. It really makes it delicious. Plus, eating olive oil with tomatoes helps us better absorb lycopene
  5. I usually make these on the stove top, but I’ve also made them before in the crock pot and instant pot with good results. 

Greek Style Green Beans (Fasolakia) | Reclaiming Yesterday

The crusty bread and the feta cheese are pretty perfect food matches for these Greek green beans, I won’t lie. (Goat cheese is also great) 

BUT if you happen to have dietary restrictions that prevent you from eating either or both of them (🙋🏻‍♀️ hi! That would be me) don’t sweat it. 

They’re still 100% delicious without them. Trust me 😋

Kali orexi! 

Greek Style Green Beans (Fasolakia) | Reclaiming Yesterday

 



22 responses to “Greek Style Green Beans (Fasolakia) Stovetop & Instant Pot Options”

  1. My husband is Greek and this is pretty much his exact recipe. Although most of the time he’s too lazy to grate the onion. We made this tonight with fresh beans from our garden. So delicious!

  2. Thank you for the recipe! Made it tonight and it is delicious. I put the onion in my cuisinart and saved my fingers from being grated.

    • Hi Alexis, I don’t have the ounces right now (I can check and get back to you later on that) but you’ll need about 8 cups of green beans! Basically a big pot full 🙂

  3. These are excellent! I made them tonight, and they’re delicious with and without feta on top. Notes: I used a 32-oz. bag of frozen cut green beans (and kept the quantities for all of the other ingredients the same); I found that to get the beans tender enough, they needed to cook covered for about 50 minutes, by which time the liquid was so reduced that no further cooking was needed.

    • I’m not sure in litres – I measured 8 cups frozen, these beans cook down a lot! In Greece it’s less of a side and more of a main with feta cheese and bread!

  4. This is very similar to a Turkish recipe that we love. Instead of oregano, add 2 tsp each of freshly ground coriander seed and smoked paprika. Serve on rice.

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