Chinese Style Garlic Green Beans

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.

More Asian-Style Recipes

• Crispy Salt and Pepper Tofu
• Chicken Chop Suey
• Steamed Fish with Ginger
• Chinese Sticky Wings

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Chinese Style Garlic Green Beans

These crispy green beans are loaded with garlic flavor. It's a popular dish at Chinese restaurants, which you can make in your own home. I'm sharing two ways to make this dish - one that is a more traditional deep-fried version and a healthier version that uses less oil.

Prep Time: 10 minutes mins

Cook Time: 5 minutes mins

Total Time: 15 minutes mins

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Ingredients

• ▢ 1 lb green beans, washed, trimmed, and cut to half their length
• ▢ 6 cloves of garlic, minced
• ▢ 1/2 -1 tsp salt
• ▢ vegetable oil for frying
• ▢ ice for water bath

Instructions

 

Blanch the Green Beans (optional)

• To preserve the color of the beans for the final dish you will want to blanch the beans. If you aren't worried about the color you can skip this step. 
• In a large bowl, fill with ice and add water to the ice. Add water to your wok, enough to cover all the beans. Bring water in wok to a boil and add green beans. Cook for 30 seconds and immediately remove and put into the ice bath to stop the cooking process. 

Fry the Green Beans

• Remove water from wok if you blanched the green beans. Add a shallow amount of oil to the wok, about 1/4 inch deep. Once oil is hot, add green beans and fry for about 1 minute, or until the skin just starts to wrinkle. Careful to not over-fry or the beans will lose their crispness. 
• Remove green beans and put them on a plate lined with paper towels to soak up some of the oil. Drain all but 1 tbsp of the oil out of wok and place wok back on the stove.
• When wok is hot, add in garlic and cook on high heat until the aroma of garlic comes out and it begins to brown. Add green beans back in and stir fry with garlic. Season with salt. Cook until beans are cooked to desired doneness and have incorporated the garlic flavor (about 1-2 minutes). Eat while hot.

Healthier technique

• If you choose to, start by blanching the green beans as described in step 1 otherwise you can skip this step.
• Add 1 tablespoon of oil to the wok. Once heated, add green beans. Stir fry them for a few minutes at high heat.
• Add about 1/4 cup of water to the wok, cover it with lid, and steam the beans until they are almost cooked. Remove cover. Add about 3 tbsp of oil and continue cooking until beans start to wrinkle. 
• Remove beans and place on a plate lined with paper towels to soak up excess oil. Drain all but 1 tbsp of the oil out of the wok and place wok back on the stove. Move onto step 4.

The nutrition information provided are only estimates based on an online nutritional calculator. This is not a comprehensive list of all the nutrients in the recipe (i.e., does not include vitamins, cholesterol, etc). I am not a certified nutritionist. Please consult a nutritionist or doctor for accurate information and any dietary restrictions and concerns you may have.

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