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These crispy Chinese green beans are loaded with garlic flavor. It’s a popular dish at Chinese restaurants, which you can make in your own home. In this post, I’m sharing how to make garlic green beans two ways. One is more like the ones served at restaurants and the other is a healthier version you can cook daily.

We’ve been obsessed with garlic green beans recently. Our favorite version is made at the famous Din Tai Fung. After my last visit, I took a closer examination of their green beans dish.

Chinese Green Beans

When green beans are simply stir-fried, they are quite crispy and maintain their bright green color, much like the garlic green bean dish served at restaurants. However, the skin of DTF’s beans is also slightly wrinkly, which is an indication that they are fried.

A popular Sichuan Chinese bean dish utilizes the dry fry method, where beans are cooked until wrinkly and wilted in a shallow amount of oil. Usually, the dry-fried beans technique yields beans that have a soft and tender texture and turn a yellow-green color because they are cooked for so long. The ones we’ve been eating at restaurants though are still a vibrant green.

Here’s a photo from the ones at DTF:

After making several batches, I finally achieved a copycat green bean recipe I thought to be as tasty as the ones at Din Tai Fung and other Chinese restaurants.

Ingredients

Trimmed green beans cut in half
Minced garlic cloves
Salt
vegetable oil
Ice water

How to Make Restaurant Style Garlic Green Beans

To achieve these restaurant-style Chinese green beans, the beans are both fried and stir-fried.

First, the green beans are blanched. This will preserve their bright green color.

The beans are then lightly fried in a shallow amount of oil.

The beans are then removed and garlic is added to the oil. Garlic is cooked until the flavor of the garlic is infused into the oil.

Finally, the beans are added back into the wok and stir-fried with the garlic.

Healthier Garlic Green Beans

For a healthier variation, the beans are not fried.
Similar to the method above, the beans are first blanched to preserve their color.
The beans are then stir-fried with a lot of garlic and a little oil. The beans are also briefly steamed so that they become tender faster.

Both variations are very flavorful. Of course, we prefer the restaurant-style but we make sure not to make this one too often since it involves frying the beans.

Recipe Tips and Variations

I wanted to create a recipe similar to the ones we had at the restaurant, but there are things you can add to if you want to change the flavor of this dish.

You can garnish the fried green beans with a drizzle of sesame oil, sesame seeds, or thinly sliced green onions or scallions.
When you cook the garlic you could add some red pepper flakes for a little heat.
You could also add some grated fresh ginger at the end of the cooking time before you serve the green beans.
It helps if you have a wok for this recipe, but you can also use a large pan or large skillet.
If you have leftovers store them in an airtight container and they will keep for a few days in the fridge. The green beans won’t be as crispy when you reheat them, but they’ll still taste good.

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