Healthy Eats: Pickled Green Beans & Red Onions

I’ve never been a big fan of pickles (unless they were deep fried ;0), but pickled green beans and red onions have my taste buds singing! I was introduced to pickled green beans by a dear friend of mine who produced the most epic charcuterie board one evening for a get-together. I became obsessed and quickly looked up recipes. After a little trial and error I found an easy, healthy, and quick way to create pickled green beans. Of course, I couldn’t stop there and expanded my recipe to also include red onions. Now, I always have a jar or two in the fridge of both pickled green beans, red onions, cucumbers and asparagus. The recipe works for almost any vegetable. Once pickled, they make amazing toppings on salads, healthy additions to charcuterie boards, or just a quick nibble when you’re between meals and hunger is kicking in.

Ingredients:

  • A few large handfuls of green beans (ends trimmed or snapped off)
  • 1 medium to large red onion sliced thin and layers separated
  • 3 cups of water
  • 2 cups of apple cider vinegar
  • 3 TBSP salt
  • 2 TBSP Swerve, Stevia, Truvia, etc. (zero calorie sugar substitute)
  • garlic cloves
  • peppercorns
  • dried red pepper flakes
  • dried dill (fresh is fine too but I find the dried gives better flavor)

Here’s how I set everything up:

  1. Line up three mason jars. Place a few garlic cloves and peppercorns in all three jars. In two of them add red pepper flakes (1 tsp) and dried dill (1 tsp). I just eyeball the measurements, it doesn’t matter if its not exact. The two that have all the goodies get the raw, trimmed green beans placed in them. The jar with just the peppercorns and garlic will be for the red onion. You can also add an additional tsp of sugar substitute to the red onion jar if you like them a little sweeter.
  2. Over medium high heat, bring the water, vinegar, salt and sugar substitute to a boil. Once this mixture boils, remove from heat and place the sliced and separated red onion in the liquid for about one minute. Use tongs to remove and place directly into the remaining third jar. Let the liquid cool for a few minutes then pour over the vegetables in all three jars. This recipe should yield enough to do 3-4 jars total. Make sure the green beans and red onion are completely covered. If you added more sugar to the onions, shake this jar up so the sugar dissolves.

The pickled veggies will taste great by the next day. If you can wait 2-3 days they’ll be even better. So far they’ve not made it in my fridge longer than 1 week because we eat them so fast, but given the other recipes I had explored I believe they should hold up for a couple of weeks.

Cooking is my passion and healthy cooking is my mission, 70-80% of the week anyway! Check out my plethora of ideas to help inspire your healthy eats.

*The exact portions will vary per person. Contact us for more details on your portions and macronutrient breakdown per meal/per day! There is no need to guess at how you should eat – let us help you eat right for your body type and goals!

Healthy Eats: Buffalo Chicken Salad

Some healthy foods taste healthy. Some healthy foods taste borderline naughty. My Buffalo Chicken Salad is one of the latter. I created it one Sunday late morning while attempting to nurse a hangover without blowing my macro based meal plan. The flavors are bold! If you like buffalo chicken wings, blue cheese, and ranch, you are going to love this Buffalo Chicken Salad. Let’s put it all together.

You will need the following ingredients:

Here’s how to make the magic happen while following your meal plan:

  1. Measure your chicken and chop or shred it. Place on tinfoil and into air fryer. Crisp for 6-10 minutes on 350. Remove and top with hot sauce. Caution: a little goes a long way – if you like heat, load it up!
  2. Prepare your salad in a large bowl. Add greens/lettuce, chopped tomatoes, peppers, chopped pickled green beans, and pickled red onions.
  3. Measure your dressing to keep the macros in line. Remember you’re adding 1 oz of blue cheese crumbles per serving too so you want to make sure your fat allotment stays in check.
  4. After you’ve dressed your salad, add the measured cheese, and top with your crisped chicken portion.

This Buffalo Chicken Salad is so good, perfect for a week night meal when you need that taste of naughty but it’s not quite time yet, perfect for a hangover cure, really just perfect! I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

For more recipe ideas that will keep your healthy cooking tasting like so much more than healthy cooking, visit our Healthy Eats index.

*The exact portions will vary per person. Contact us for more details on your portions and macronutrient breakdown per meal/per day! There is no need to guess at how you should eat – let us help you eat right for your body type and goals!