{"id":708,"date":"2017-02-27T09:00:23","date_gmt":"2017-02-27T16:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/villasentieri.com\/?post_type=recipe&p=708"},"modified":"2026-09-02T10:59:21","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T17:59:21","slug":"green-beans-tomato-bacon-recipe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/villasentieri.com\/index.php\/2017\/02\/27\/green-beans-tomato-bacon-recipe\/","title":{"rendered":"Green Beans with Tomato Sauce and Bacon"},"content":{"rendered":"

February 27, 2017<\/span><\/p>\n

Earlier this month<\/a>\u00a0I wrote about my \u201ccrunchy vegetable\u201d phase of cooking back in the 1970\u2019s.\u00a0 One of the dishes I was reacting to was my mother\u2019s green beans with tomato sauce and bacon.\u00a0 Honestly, though, I can\u2019t tell you why.\u00a0 It was, bar none, my favorite vegetable dish growing up.\u00a0 Why, when I started cooking in my late teens, I thought I could make it better by cooking the beans until they were just crunchy is beyond me.<\/p>\n

Chalk it up to youthful indiscretion.<\/p>\n

Americans served a lot of mushy vegetables back then, no doubt, but the reaction shouldn\u2019t be to turn every vegetable crunchy.\u00a0 But I was just learning to cook and had a lot to learn, not only about technique, but about understanding the essence of a dish.<\/p>\n

The essence of this dish is the silky texture (most definitely not mushy) of the beans cooked for a couple of hours in tomato sauce.\u00a0 The textural change is accompanied by a flavor change that is unobtainable by quickly cooking the ingredients.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s actually pretty difficult to turn these beans mushy unless you boil them too long before adding them to the tomato sauce.\u00a0 The tomato sauce reacts with the beans to somehow inhibit the development of mushiness.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure, but it think it might be the acid in the tomatoes.<\/p>\n

That first four minute boil is critical, however.\u00a0 One time, thinking I could eliminate a step, I tried putting the cut up beans in the sauce without parboiling them first.\u00a0 Mistake!\u00a0 Four hours later the beans were still not cooked properly!<\/p>\n

Green beans cooked in tomato sauce is a classic Italian combination.\u00a0 The use of bacon clearly signals that this is Italian-American, however.\u00a0 Italian recipes might use pancetta but not bacon.\u00a0 Smoked foods are uncommon in traditional\u00a0Italian cuisine.\u00a0 The few that appear really stand out.<\/p>\n

Pancetta and bacon are made from the same cut, pork belly.\u00a0 Both are cured but only bacon is smoked.\u00a0 Although I\u2019ve made other versions of green beans in tomato sauce that are traditional Italian, rather than Italian-American, I keep coming back to this one as my favorite.

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Green Beans with Tomato Sauce and Bacon<\/h2>\n
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These long-simmered green beans in tomato sauce with bacon are an Italian-American favorite. The long, slow cooking is really essential to achieving the right texture and flavor. Although I've specified the amount of water in cups, when cooking with tomato paste my mother always measured water by the can. This dish would have had five tomato paste cans of water. She didn't quite fill them to the top so each can held about 5 1\/2 ounces of water, or a little over three cups total. You may need to add more water, or to boil some away, to get a thick sauce.<\/div>\n
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Prep Time <\/span>25 minutes<\/span><\/span> mins<\/span><\/span><\/div>
Cook Time <\/span>3 hours<\/span><\/span> hrs<\/span><\/span><\/div>
Total Time <\/span>3 hours<\/span><\/span> hrs<\/span> 25 minutes<\/span><\/span> mins<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>\n
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Servings: <\/span>8<\/span> people<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Ingredients
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