This classic southern green beans recipe with ham hock is the epitome of old fashioned cooking. Fresh green beans are slow-cooked in a delicious aromatic broth with smoky ham hocks, soaking all those good flavors right in. It's one of my favorite side dishes and it's one that the whole family will absolutely love.
Jump to Recipe Print Recipe
Love Southern food as much as I do? Try my cozy Dutch Oven Chicken and Dumplings, Old Fashioned Candied Yams, Buttermilk Biscuits, or restaurant-worthy Fried Chicken and Waffles.
Old Fashioned Southern Green Beans Passed Down for Generations
Some of my best childhood memories revolve around snapping fresh beans into a woven bowl with my mama and grandmama. Seeing the green beans I helped prepare for Thanksgiving dinner on the table made me immensely proud as a little girl.
Continuing this tradition with my family, snapping beans with Greyson while watching the Thanksgiving Day Parade, I hope this simple yet meaningful ritual will continue to be cherished memories for my children, just as it has for me.
So this dish? They're the real deal, an authentic southern recipe: tender and buttery, smoky and savory, they're the best green beans I have ever eaten hands down. They only need a handful of ingredients and have so much flavor!
This post may contain Affiliate Links. Please see my Full Disclosure Policy for more details.
Jump to:
- Old Fashioned Southern Green Beans Passed Down for Generations
- Why You’ll Love These Green Beans
- What is the origin of Southern Green Beans?
- Equipment
- Ingredients for Soul Food Green Beans
- What about Bacon?
- How to make Southern Green Beans
- Variations and Substitutions
- What to Serve with Crock Pot Green Beans
- Pro Tips
- Storage and Reheating Your String Beans
- FAQs
- 📖 Recipe
Why You’ll Love These Green Beans
- Classic Southern Side Dish Recipe - my authentic southern green beans come from generations of award-winning cooks (my mama and grandma!). These beans are from the country, honey!
- Even Kids Want to Eat These Veggies - that good potlikker and smoked ham hocks perfectly season these beans. The beans are tender, they taste like smoked meat, there's plenty of nutrients (just don't tell the kids) and there's meat to nibble on!
- Easy, Hands-Off, and Mess-Free - literally the easiest side dish you'll ever make. Toss everything into a lined slow cooker and leave it alone for a few hours. And when you're done, toss the liner out for a clean crock pot. So simple!
What is the origin of Southern Green Beans?
Slow-cooked green beans are a significant part of soul food and black culture. This tradition dates back to enslaved Africans who, with limited resources, simmered greens and beans in a nourishing broth, known as 'potlikker' or 'pot liquor.'
These slow-cooked dishes, often made with leftover vegetables and undesirable meat parts, provided essential nutrients, calories, and energy for their labor.
This practice became widespread in the South by the late 1870s, with various fatty pork parts like bacon and ham hock being used, eventually making their way into cookbooks of the 19th century.
Ever since, Black folks and southerners have eaten this melt-in-your-mouth tender comfort food with our sunday supper, as a side for all holiday meals, basically all special occasions!
Equipment
- Slow Cooker
- Chef's Knife and Cutting Board -for chopping up the onions!
Ingredients for Soul Food Green Beans
Full ingredients, measurements, and printable instructions are in the recipe card at the bottom of this post.
- Fresh Green Beans - Your local grocery store should keep fresh green beans loose or in large pre-packaged bags in the refrigerated produce section. I've even seen them come pre-snapped in those bags!
- Smoked Meat - for black folks, it comes to two options: smoked ham hocks or smoked turkey necks and wings. These were often 'undesired' parts of the animal in the mainstream food world until pretty recently, and they're traditional in southern cooking.
- Yellow Onion- dice 'em small so they basically melt in your broth as they give up their flavor.
- Garlic Powder - garlic tastes differently when it's boiled or cooked in water than when it's hit with heat or cooked in oil. Garlic powder is already cooked before being powdered, and has that savory flavor we want from garlic.
- Chicken Broth
- Red Wine Vinegar - this gives us a little brightness, some acidity to cut through the rich taste of the smoked meat.
- Red Pepper Flakes
- Salt and Black Pepper
What about Bacon?
I've seen and had plenty of country-style green beans with bacon. It's usually for a recipe on the stove top, using the rendered bacon grease in the dish for extra flavor and sprinkling the crispy bacon pieces on top.
As nice as it tastes, I love green beans that are cooked with the smoked meats. It's hearty, it's filling, it gives way more flavor, in my opinion.
And I don't have to dirty any pans, either!
How to make Southern Green Beans
Step 1 | dump everything into your lined slow cooker and give it a stir. Yep, that's all!
Step 2 | Now cook for 6-8 hours on high or 8-10 hours on low. Yes, honey, this is a long haul situation.
Pro Tip: The ham hocks are great indicators of when it's ready: when they are tender and you can pull the meat off the bone, your green beans are done!
Variations and Substitutions
- Add Potatoes - green beans and potatoes is a staple in many southerners' home, it's filling and delish. Add some baby gold potatoes or red potatoes to the crock pot and let it cook with the beans. The result is soft and creamy potatoes that have absorbed tons of tasty flavor!
- Stove Top Green Beans - you can make this recipe in a dutch oven on the stove top on medium-low heat until the ham hocks are tender and the green beans are soft and flavorful.
What to Serve with Crock Pot Green Beans
- During the Holiday Season - we serve these southern style green beans withclassic holiday faire: a roast turkey, sweet potato casserole, creamy mashed potatoes, buttery dinner rolls, and sparkling apple cider sangria.
- With Soul Food - imagine these savory beans on a plate piled high with cornbread, creamy mac and cheese, buttermilk fried chicken, and a side plate of peach cobbler with a glass of lemonade. Heaven on earth!
- At a Cookout - they're a perfect side in the summer along with grilled corn, smoked brisket sandwiches, saucy baked beans, and refreshing watermelon agua fresca.
- For a cozy Sunday Dinner - there's nothing like a cozy pot roast on your fork with tender green beans on a cold autumn day with fresh homemade bread, a yummy salad, and a delicious glass of pumpkin cider!
Pro Tips
- Use fresh green beans - do not use frozen green beans or canned green beans. Canned green beans are soft already and frozen green beans' texture is compromised from being frozen. Fresh is best!
- Can't find ham hock? Salt pork or smoked turkey wings work, too!
- Don't eat pork? -Smoked turkey necksandturkey baconhave been a widely used pork substitute for collard greens and green beans. They still give a delicious smoky, meaty flavor and are a big part of southern cooking.
- Snap your green beans instead of cutting them - Bending the stems and snapping them in half lets you assess their freshness and quality. It's not just a lovely tradition but ensures each bean is firm, bright green, and critter-free, guaranteeing the most tender green beans for your meal.
Storage and Reheating Your String Beans
Preparing your old fashioned southern green beans before a big feast like Thanksgiving is a breeze. These green beans stay in your fridge for up to 7 days when stored correctly in an airtight container inside your fridge (not the door). Store the beans and meat in the broth to keep them from drying out.
To freeze the leftover green beans, add about 2-4 servings each into gallon sized, freezer-safe, zip-top bags. Freeze them as flat as you can, this helps them thaw faster.
Thaw your beans in the fridge overnight and reheat them on the stove top in a saucepan or in the slow cooker until heated through.
FAQs
What can I add to green beans for flavor?
This recipe has tons of flavor from the smoked meat, garlic and onions, red pepper, the splash of red wine vinegar, and chicken broth everything cooks in.
What's a ham hock?
Ham hock is the shank or ankle of a pig that has been smoked. You can also find it called 'pork knuckle' in certain regions. Ham hocks have a distinctive meaty flavor and are tough with tons of fat, connective tissue, and more often than not have the skin still wrapped around the meat of it tightly.
You can find ham hocks at many local big box supermarkets, but you can also find them at butcher shops and ethnic markets for dirt cheap. They can come in giant knuckles or in horizontal slices.
Click here to subscribeSWEET TEA & THYME’S NEWSLETTERfor free and fresh recipes right into your inbox!
To pin this recipe and save it for later you can use the Pin button on the recipe card, the sharing buttons above or below this post, or on any of the photos above.
Tag me @sweet_tea_thyme onInstagramto share your remakes with me, I love looking through your photos!
Enjoyed the recipe? Leave a 5 star rating and comment below to let me know. I appreciate ya!
📖 Recipe
Southern Green Beans Recipe
Eden Westbrook
This southern green beans recipe has been in my family for generations. Tender green beans slow cooked in a flavorful broth with smoked meat is a classic southern side dish that is perfect to accompany your holiday meals this year.
4.57 from 130 votes
Print this Recipe Pin Recipe
Prep Time 5 minutes mins
Cook Time 6 hours hrs
Total Time 6 hours hrs 5 minutes mins
Course Side Dishes
Cuisine African American
Servings 12 servings
Calories 41 kcal
Ingredients
- 2 lbs fresh green beans
- 1 or 2 smoked ham hocks
- 6 cups low-sodium chicken stock
- 2 teaspoon granulated garlic
- ¼ yellow onion small dice
- ½ tablespoon kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
- ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 1 teaspoon red wine vinegar
Instructions
Rinse, dry, and snap the ends off your fresh green beans, discarding any green beans that are limp, brown, or otherwise not fresh.
Set your slow cooker to low (8+ hours) or high (6-8 hours) and toss in the ham hocks, chicken stock, snapped green beans, garlic powder, onion, kosher salt, black pepper, red pepper flakes, and red vinegar. Stir well.
Secure the top of the slow cooker and let the green beans cook until the ham hocks are fork tender and can fall apart.
After the time is done, serve hot. Keep in the fridge in an airtight container for up to 7 days.
Notes
Make Green Beans Ahead
Preparing your green beans before a big feast like Thanksgiving is a breeze. These green beans stay in your fridge for up to 7 days when stored correctly in an airtight container inside your fridge (not the door). Keep the beans and meat in the potlikker when storing, it keeps them from drying out.
To reheat for serving, you can nuke it in the microwave for a few minutes until everything is heated through. You can also put all of it into a large saucepan or small Dutch oven and heat over medium-low until hot.
Pro Tips
- Use fresh green beans - do not use frozen green beans or canned green beans. Canned green beans are soft already and frozen green beans' texture is compromised from being frozen. Fresh is best!
- Can't find ham hock? Salt pork or smoked turkey wings work, too!
- Don't eat pork? -Smoked turkey necksandturkey baconhave been a widely used pork substitute for collard greens and green beans. They still give a delicious smoky, meaty flavor and are a big part of southern cooking.
- Snap your green beans instead of cutting them - Bending the stems and snapping them in half lets you assess their freshness and quality. It's not just a lovely tradition but ensures each bean is firm, bright green, and critter-free, guaranteeing the most tender green beans for your meal.
Nutrition
Serving: 1gCalories: 41kcalCarbohydrates: 7gProtein: 4gCholesterol: 1mgSodium: 482mgFiber: 2gSugar: 3g
Tried this recipe?Leave a star rating and let us know!
