Din Tai Fung garlic green beans

Garlic green beans are a staple at most Chinese-American restaurants here in the US. They’re usually bright green, well-blistered, yet still snappy and delicious. Cooking green beans at home rarely yield the same results, as most of us typically opt to saute our green beans. While sauteing can definitely achieve delicious green beans, I set out to experiment various cooking methods and temperatures at home to replicate my favorite restaurant garlic green beans — the ones you can get at Din Tai Fung.

What are Din Tai Fung garlic green beans?

Din Tai Fung is a Taiwanese restaurant chain that’s most famous for their perfectly-pleated soup dumplings (xiao long bao). In addition to their xiao long bao, they also have a variety of popular entrees and side dishes, one of my favorites being their garlic green beans. It’s such a simple dish, but executed flawlessly: they’re perfectly snappy, blistered, and lightly coated with a fragrance of garlic.

I spent an entire day experimenting with different cooking methods, temperatures, and cook times, and I’m so excited to share with you a recipe that I feel is nearly identical to Din Tai Fung’s!

A few musts to get the perfectly blistered and snappy garlic green beans:

Cooking method

While air-frying and sauteing can certainly get you great tasting green beans, flash frying in hot oil achieves the best texture that’s closest to Din Tai Fung and Chinese restaurants’. One important thing I learned through experimenting with multiple batches is that the longer you cook the green beans, the softer and duller (in color) they get. When flash-frying, you only need to fry it for 15-30 seconds* — it’s the quickest way to cook the green beans, which helps it retain the bright green color and achieve the beautifully blistered skin without sacrificing texture.

Frying oil temperature

When flash-frying these green beans, the oil needs to be at least 350-375F for them to cook and blister quickly. If you try frying at a lower temperature, the green beans will need to be cooked longer to achieve the blistered skin — and the longer cook time leads to softer, less snappy green beans.

Small batch cooking

Frying in small batches prevents the green beans from cooling down the oil temperature. As you know from the above point, when the temperature gets below 350F, you’ll have to cook them longer, which results in dull and soft green beans instead of the bright and crunchy you’re looking for. Alternatively, if you’d like to be more efficient and fry it all at once, you can use a large wok or pot to flash-fry in a lot of oil. The larger amount of oil will take longer to heat up, but it will retain the temperature better. For me, I like frying in a smaller pot so that I have less leftover fry oil, therefore I stick to frying in small batches.

*cook time will vary depending on how thick the skins of the green beans are

Interested in cooking other Chinese vegetable dishes?

Chinese cuisine includes such a wide variety of vegetables — I will eventually feature most of the popular ones on this website one day, but here are a few I have up that are definitely worth checking out!

Please note: I get commissions for purchases made through links in this post