This green bean classic is straight from the pages of The Best Recipe Cookbook by the editors of Cook's Illustrated. Green beans are popular with almost everyone and this old-fashioned recipe is a surefire hit.

4 strips bacon, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 medium onion, minced
1 lb. green beans, ends snapped off
salt and ground black pepper

Fry bacon in large skillet over medium heat until crisp, about 5 minutes. Remove bacon from pan with slotted spoon and drain on paper towels. Pour off all but 2 tablespoons bacon drippings. Add onion and sauté until softened, about 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, bring 2 1/2 quarts of water to boil in a large saucepan. Add beans and a little salt and cook until tender about 5 minutes. Drain and add to skillet with onion. Toss to heat through, 1 or 2 minutes. Add bacon and season with salt (sparingly) and pepper to taster. Serve immediately.

Tips
String Beans or Old Beans?
Most commercially available green beans are stringless, but it's easy to tell if they're not. When you break off the ends, the string will stay attached to both the bean and the broken tip. Just zip it right off the length of the bean.

Stringy beans might also be stringless beans that are past their prime. This can happen if they're stored too long, or if they're simply picked too late (as a gardener, I know firsthand the agony of picking the beans too late--blech).

It's a good idea to test them at the supermarket before you buy. Snap off the end and bite into it. The pod of a raw green bean, stringed or stringless, should be yummy, tender, and sweet, and the beans inside should be tender as well. Old green beans pods are fibrous, flavorless, and generally inedible, and the inside beans are hard and grainy. Yuck.