Like many other Americans, I’ve been planning my Thanksgiving menu this week. Let’s be honest, Thanksgiving is a HEAVY holiday. I love Thanksgiving food, but I’m not a fan of that heavy, sick-to-your-stomach feeling that comes from eating too much. I was shocked to learn that the average Thanksgiving dinner is around 3,000 calories. Really! And that doesn’t include breakfast or lunch—were talking just the holiday meal itself! Holy moly.
Over the past few years, I’ve worked to lighten up my Thanksgiving menu without sacrificing on flavor. My husband’s maternal family is Sephardic Jewish from Israel, which means we’ve been gifted with some fabulous, healthy family recipes from the Middle East and Mediterranean. When Thanksgiving rolls around, I like to add some of these dishes to the mix to lighten things up. To be fair, some holiday foods are best made without worrying about the fat– like desserts, for example. But lightening up just a few side dishes can put a big dent into the turkey day calorie count.
Take green beans, for example. A typical Thanksgiving side dish is Green Bean Casserole. Green beans swim in butter and cream sauce, then they’re topped with deep-fried onions and baked into a casserole. Whoa. Heavy with a capital H! Why not consider swapping this caloric side dish for something lighter, and in my opinion even more flavorful, like our family recipe for Green Bean Tomato Sauté? This green bean dish is super simple to make and really, really tasty. It’s also a great recipe to make ahead, which can cut down on your holiday prep time; the green beans taste even better after marinating overnight in the fridge.
This dish is vegetarian, vegan, pareve, gluten free, affordable, and easy to throw together. It’s a great option for a quick weekday meatless meal, too! My husband and I sometimes eat this as a light dinner with some French bread or sourdough for dipping in the tomato sauce. Filling, flavorful, satisfying, and further proof that food doesn’t need to be swimming in fat to be delicious! Enjoy. 
RECOMMENDED PRODUCTS
Any purchase you make from The Shiksa Market helps to support my website, my recipes, and the free content I provide. If you have an Amazon login, it’s even easier to make a purchase. Thanks for browsing!
Green Bean Tomato Sauté
Ingredients
- 2 lbs green beans, trimmed
- 1/3 cup olive oil
- 1 sweet onion (Mayan or Vidalia), peeled and diced
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 lb ripe tomatoes, seeded and chopped or 1 can (14 oz) diced tomatoes
- 3 tbsp tomato paste
- 2 tsp fresh minced oregano (or 1 tsp dried oregano)
- 1 tsp sugar
- Salt and pepper
- Chop the green beans into 1 1/2 - 2 inch pieces.
Heat the oil in a wide sauté pan over medium. Sauté the diced onions for 5 minutes till softened. Add the minced garlic and continue to sauté for another 2 minutes till fragrant.
Add the green beans to the pan and sauté for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, till the green beans warm up and begin to lighten slightly in color.
Add the tomatoes, tomato paste, and oregano to the pan. Stir till all ingredients are blended.
Add hot water to the pan till the green beans are about 80% covered. Add sugar to the pan, and season with salt and pepper to taste. I usually add about 1 1/4 tsp of salt and 1/2 tsp of pepper.
Stir all ingredients and bring to a slow boil for 2 minutes. 
Cover the pan and reduce heat to low. Let the green beans cook for 20-50 minutes, depending on how soft you like the green beans. 20 minutes will produce a tender-crisp "al dente" texture; 50 minutes will make them very soft. I like to cook them for about 30 minutes, so they're tender but not mushy.
Serve the green beans warm as a side dish, or at room temperature (which can be nice during the summer months). The tomato sauce is perfect for dipping fresh bread. - It's the kind of dish that improves with time, so if you want to cook the green beans a day ahead and let them marinate overnight in the fridge, they will taste even better the next day!
Torí, thank you for the help that you are giving me with this vegan recipes. One more for my thanksgiven dinner.
I use a similar recipe via my friend’s Turkish MIL’s recipe.
Her recipe uses only the green beans, onions+garlic, a small 8 oz can of tomato sauce, and salt & pepper to taste. It’s quite wonderful and I have eaten this as a main course
many times. I have also used frozen cut green beans in a pinch, and that’s quite good too. Fresh beans are better – but the frozen will do.
Tori – green beans with tomatoes is one of my all time favorites! I make mine slightly different – but I have to say….I think I like yours better! Thank you SO much for sharing this one! It’s a winner!
This looks awesome! Healthy and tasty. Right up my alley.
I love this!
We go to a potluck Thanksgiving, which is nice in terms of prep, but bad in terms of calories and variety.
The one year I was assigned veggies, I didn’t make a green bean casserole, but instead something more healthful and light. Nobody ate it.
I now am I charge of appetizers, so I can at least get a good crudités in the mix.
I love this green bean dish, so healthy. We eat it cold in Turkey and I wanted to make this for the last Thanksgiving but my husband said “it is way too healthy and does not meet Thanksgiving standards, so his family would not eat it!”
Instead of getting frustrated at the dinner, I decided to clog their arteries with the usual, Southern casserole and kept this for myself!
I am all about making meals healthier without sacrificing the taste, so I really like what you’ve done. I definitely love holidays, but there’s something I never enjoy — the feeling of heaviness (and guilt!) after typical holiday meals. This year, I’m dedicated to avoiding this and bringing delicious dishes to the table without any negative consequences
Hi Tori, I am new to your blog and I like the way you write a story connected with each of your dishes. The only doubt I have about this recipe is regarding the nutritional value of the vegetable if it’s cooked for 30 mints or more as you say. I always thought any vegetable other than root vegetables cooked more than 10 mints loses its color thus losing its vitamins .
Hi Roshini, the traditional way to cook this dish is to cook them low and slow. Larger beans take a long time to get tender, they can be quite tough. If you’d like to shorten the cooking time, use very small green beans (the dainty french variety- haricot vert). They should soften in 5-10 minutes if you keep the pot on a medium simmer rather than a low simmer. If you do this, you will not need to add as much water to the pot… the long slow simmer reduces the liquid and thickens the sauce, so if you’re cutting the cooking time you should only add a little bit of water, just enough to get the sauce to a nice consistency after 5-10 minutes of cooking. Enjoy!