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The Batter Thickens

A food blog balancing sweet treats & healthy eats.

Lima Beans, Part 2: Everything Seasoned Lima Beans with Bacon

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My last foray into lima beans resulted in me preparing butter beans. Which, if you didn’t read that post, are actually just mature lima beans. But I still needed to try proper baby lima beans – the kind that made my mom and uncle say they tasted like barf. And I am happy to report that, at least prepared this way, they do not taste like barf!! These Everything Seasoned Lima Beans with Bacon are actually quite tasty.

I could have boiled my lima beans, just like the way my mom probably had them as a kid. But I wanted these beans to get to put their best foot forwards. The point was to see if they could taste good. So I found this recipe for “Southern-style” lima beans, and decided it was a good base to build off of. Surely, if it’s a staple dish of a region, and it’s loaded with bacon, it can’t be that bad?

I assumed correctly. Lima beans sauteed with onions, garlic, seasoning, and crispy bacon… Delicious. It’s just now occurring to me how good this dish would be with cheese too…

The beans hardly had any distinct flavor of their own. Frankly, if you had told me they were edamame, I would have believed you. It makes me wonder how lima beans have gotten such a bad rap. Maybe I’ll try boiled and unseasoned limas. But I do think that a barf flavor would come through regardless of how much bacon you included in a dish, so I’m not sure eating them plain would reveal much. Maybe I would have hated them if I tried them as a kid? But it’s hard to imagine.

I changed up the seasoning on these, just because I had everything bagel seasoning handy, and wanted to make it “my own.” I also cooked the bacon in the oven, to maximize the crispiness of it, which I think was a good call. Overall, these were delicious and incredibly easy to prepare. I think this is definitely meant to be a side dish, but… I just ate a bowl of it for lunch. It was satisfying and tasty.

Now I just need to convince my mom to try these next time she’s in town…

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Everything Seasoned Lima Beans with Bacon

  • Author: Audrey
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Ingredients

  • 4 slices bacon
  • 1 clove garlic, minced
  • 1 yellow onion, diced
  • 2 tsp everything bagel seasoning
  • salt and black pepper to taste
  • ⅛ to ¼ red pepper flakes – (optional)
  • 16 ounces frozen baby lima beans
  • 1 ½ cups chicken broth or stock

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees, and lay out four bacon strips on a baking sheet lined with aluminum foil.
  2. Bake bacon for 20-25 minutes, until crispy. Then, pour the bacon grease from the foil into a large pot. Break up the bacon into bits and set aside.
  3. To the pot with the bacon grease, add in garlic, onion, and spices, and sauté for about 3 minutes, until fragrant and the onions are beginning to soften.
  4. Then add in lima beans and broth. Cover the pot and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low to simmer.
  5. Cook for 30 minutes, stirring periodically. If needed, add water or more broth. You do not need a lot of liquid, but you don’t want them to burn. So add if necessary. Season with salt if desired.
  6. Cook for another 30 minutes until buttery tender, top with the crumbled bacon bits, and enjoy.

Notes

Adapted from Soulfully Made

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