I always want my holiday meals to be delicious and impressive, but I don’t believe that means they need to be complicated. Yes, I did get a little carried away with the fillable Christmas ornaments I serve the cocktails in, but the results were worth it. The rest of the dinner looked complicated, but it was really broken down into simple steps. This recipe for Dijon Tahini Green Beans is no different. The photos look beautiful, the ingredients sound tasty, and the total time to prepare it is listed at a mere 10 minutes. No, that’s not a typo: 10 minutes from start to finish. Can it be? I have to give this a try!
Get your greens in with this saucy side that’s oil-free with a creamy dijon tahini dressing. Perfect to complement your holiday spread.
The Ingredients
As usual, I had a few ingredients just hanging out in my pantry. A bottle of sesame seeds, Himalayan pink salt, black pepper, and even an unopened jar of tahini (shout out to my Aunt Margie for that!).
That left me to buy the green beans, lemon, and Sir Kensington’s Dijon Mustard. The Fresh Market was the only nearby store that carried it, so I did the bulk of my shopping there to get it.
It was pricey at $6.49 for a jar, but I have to admit it’s better than my go-to Grey Poupon. I even used it on the pomegranate glaze for the Standing Prime Rib Roast that I served with these Dijon Tahini Green Beans. Okay, I tested it on a ham sandwich before using it in my 2021 Christmas dinner recipes, and it passed that taste test and then some!
The Process
I didn’t quite make the 10 minute time, but these Dijon Tahini Green Beans were pretty darn quick. Here’s how it went:
- 4 minutes to prep
- 8 minutes to cook
- 1 minute to sauce and garnish
- 13 minutes total
The green beans I bought were mostly trimmed, but I did have to go through them and make sure all the stems were removed. After that, it was into a 4.5-quart pan to boil for 3 minutes. I mixed up the sauce while the beans were cooking, and it was ready to go well before I had the beans drained and arranged on a platter.
I think I would have had everything done in 10 minutes, but I had a little oops with the sauce. The first batch I made was just too thin! I made it as instructed and I had a bad feeling as soon as I stirred in the 1/4 cup of hot water.
The photo below shows how thin the first dijon-tahini sauce was. Not cute! So I rinsed off the green beans with hot water so they wouldn’t cool down too much (good thing I still had my colander out!). Then I remixed the sauce and added the hot water 1 tablespoon at a time.
Two tablespoons gave me the nice thick sauce you see in the main photo. I think I could have added another tablespoon, but I was a little gun-shy after getting it too thin the first time. I decided thicker sauce was safer, and it really stayed on top of the green beans nicely.
