It happens to the best of us…
…even food bloggers. Our vegetables, sometimes, get BORING.
I finally got sick of my thai vegetable curry, which I put on replay for months. With that way of dressing up veggies temporarily out of commission, I went to my own Paleo Flavor Boosters post for new ideas.
But Herbamare and Truffle Salt on my roasted vegetables simply was not enough variation, so I headed to the Asian Foods isle of my food co-op and picked up toasted sesame oil and gomasio.
Besides the flavor additions, color variation also helps prevent boring vegetables. Golden nuggets of butternut and crispy green beans work beautifully together.
About the ingredients in Butternut and Sesame Green Beans
Toasted Sesame Oil provides a warm, deep flavor to the simple glaze on these veggies. If you haven’t cooked with it before, you will likely recognize the flavor from Asian dishes. Just a small amount goes a long way.
Gomasio is also called Sesame Salt. This blend of sesame seeds, sea salt and seaweed provides salty, umami flavor and crunch to this recipe. I also use gomasio to garnish soups and seafood.
Fresh ginger, and I mean not powdered ginger, makes this dish. Here’s a quick kitchen hack called The Ginger Secret: peel knobs of ginger and keep them in a ziplock in your freezer. Then, when you need fresh ginger, simply grate a knob of ginger on a microplane.
Coconut aminos are a soy-free alternative to soy sauce. This condiment has a sweeter, rounder, and less salty flavor.
- 1-2 Tbs. melted coconut oil
- 1 lb. green beans, trimmed
- 1 small butternut squash, cubed
- Unrefined salt
- 1½ tsp. toasted sesame oil, available here
- ½ tsp. fresh grated ginger
- 1 tsp. raw honey,available here
- 1 tsp. rice vinegar or apple cider vinegar
- 1 Tbs. coconut aminos, available here
- 1 - 2 Tbs. gomasio, available here
- Optional: black sesame seeds, for garnish
- Preheat the oven to 400 and line two baking sheets with unbleached parchment paper, available here, for easy cleanup.
- Toss the butternut with about a tablespoon of oil and a pinch of salt, and roast for about 40 minutes total. Stir halfway through.
- After the butternut has been roasting for 20 minutes, toss the green beans with a bit of oil , add a pinch of salt, and put the in the oven. The green beans will take about 20 minutes to roast. Adding the green beans halfway through the baking time required for the butternut means they will be done about the same time.
- When the veggies are done, whisk together the toasted sesame oil, ginger, honey, vinegar, and coconut aminos. Toss together the green beans, butternut and the glaze. Sprinkle with gomasio and optionally the black sesame seeds.
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